Hizbollah poised to defeat Israel

[fastpat]

Looks like the predicted victory of Hizbollah over Israel is emminent. Read on:

Collapse of the Flanks

by William S. Lind

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the "coalition" defeats continue slowly to unroll. In Lebanon, it appears Hezbollah may win not only at the moral and mental, strategic and operational levels, but, astonishingly, at the physical and tactical levels as well. That outcome remains uncertain, but the fact that it is possible portends a revolutionary reassessment of what Fourth Generation forces can accomplish. If it actually happens, the walls of the temple that is the state system will be shaken world-wide.

One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press, as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters. So Israel, with its American-style hi-tech "precision weaponry," has killed ten times as many innocents as enemies. In contrast, of 97 Israeli dead, 61 are soldiers and only 36 civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah’s rockets are anything but precise (think Congreves). Israel can hit anything it can target, but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance, it also raises the question of who is the real "terrorist." Terror bombing by aircraft is still terror.

Understandably, these events keep Americans focused on the places where the fighting is taking place. But more important developments may be occurring on the flanks, largely unnoticed. An analysis piece in the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer by Sally Buzbee of AP notes:

Anger toward America is high, extremists are on the upswing, and hopes for democracy in the Middle East lie dashed….

"America, we hate you more than ever," Ammar Ali Hassan wrote in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, in the kind of visceral, slap-in-the-face rhetoric boiling across the region…."

Even many Arab reformers now believe the United States cares more about supporting Israel than anything else, including democracy.

Egypt is one of the three centers of gravity of America’s position in the Middle East, the others being Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. An article by Michael Slackman in the Sunday New York Times suggests that Egyptians’ anger is turning on their own government:

For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict provided presidents, kings, emirs and dictators of the region with a safety valve for public frustration….

That valve no longer appears to be working in Egypt….

"The regular man on the street is beginning to connect everything together, said Mr. (Kamal) Khalil, the director of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. "The regime impairing his livelihood is the same regime that is oppressing his freedom and the same regime that is colluding with Zionism and American hegemony."

Today, in an interview with the BBC, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned that the map of the Middle East is becoming unrecognizable and its future appears "dim."

Washington, which in its hubris ignores both its friends and its enemies, refusing to talk to the latter or listen to the former, does not grasp that if the flanks collapse, it is the end of our adventures in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also, in a slightly longer time frame, the end of Israel. No Crusader state survives forever, and in the long term Israel’s existence depends on arriving at some sort of modus vivendi with the region. The replacement of Mubarak, King Abdullah and the House of Saud with the Moslem Brotherhood would make that possibility fade.

To the region, America’s apparently unconditional and unbounded support for Israel and its occupation of Iraq are part of the same picture. For a military historian, the question arises: will history see Iraq as America’s Stalingrad? If we kick the analogy up a couple of levels, to the strategic and grand strategic, there are parallels. Both the German and the American armies were able largely to take, but not hold, the objective. Both had too few troops. Both Berlin and Washington underestimated their enemy’s ability to counter-attack. Both committed resources they needed elsewhere and could not replace to a strategically unimportant objective. Finally, both entrusted their flanks to weak allies – and to luck.

Let us hope that, unlike von Paulus, our commanders know when to get out, regardless of orders from a leader who will not recognize reality.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind104.html

[pwd72s]

[fastpat]

Originally posted by pwd72s

Where's your facts with which to illuminate us?

[Seahawk]

You calling in arty from your Scout helo for Hizbollah (aka Hezbollah)?

Bet me who survives.

[on-ramp]

rest assured, upon an Isreal defeat, they will use nuclear weapons. kill 100K in Lebanon, in the name of "fighting terrorism".

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by on-ramp
rest assured, upon an Isreal defeat, they will use nuclear weapons. kill 100K in Lebanon, in the name of "fighting terrorism".

Works for me. Hope they dot the 'i's and cross the 't's by plastering Teheran while they're at it.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by on-ramp
rest assured, upon an Isreal defeat, they will use nuclear weapons. kill 100K in Lebanon, in the name of "fighting terrorism".

Well, many governments kill millions during their death throes, so I'd not be surprised, but...

I'm not discussing or presenting information about a defeat of Israel during an invasion of Israel. Israel has invaded Lebanon, it's in all the papers and on TV, and Israel is being defeated in their invasion goals.

Yes, this bodes unwell for Israel, but over time that's to be expected, even inevitable.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Seahawk
You calling in arty from your Scout helo for Hizbollah (aka Hezbollah)?

Bet me who survives.

I'm in South Carolina and haven't flown militarily since 1991. Your concern is gratifying, but unnecessary.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by BlueSkyJaunte
Works for me. Hope they dot the 'i's and cross the 't's by plastering Teheran while they're at it.

You want nuclear carnage in the mideast, why, exactly?

[jyl]

If the ceasefire that appears to be in the works does in fact go forward, then Israel has in fact lost this war.

Israel's stated goal in this war was to eliminate Hezbollah's ability to rocket Israeli cities. Israel has very clearly failed to accomplish that goal. Hezbollah's stated goal was to survive the Israeli attacks. Hezbollah has very clearly accomplished that goal. Most important, Israel has lost its image of military invincibility.

I am disappointed in the Israeli government's conduct of the war. They wasted the first weeks using airpower only, giving Hezbollah plenty of time to get ready in their defenses. Then they sent their ground troops in limited, small-scale missions that could be stymied by a couple dozen Hezbollah fighters manning anti-tank missiles. They activated reserves but never used them, talked about increasing the effort but never did it.

I'd think Israel will have a change of government before too long.

I'm not necessarily agreeing w/ what pat posted - that article goes at this from a different angle entirely.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by jyl
If the ceasefire that appears to be in the works does in fact go forward, then Israel has in fact lost this war.

Israel lost his war when they over-reacted, bombed ports, powerplants and bridges mainly used by the 97% of the Lebanese population not supporting Hezbollah. It created a huge natural disaster with one poweplant bombing, resulting in a massive oil spill into the Med.

The Hezbollah response, by comparison -- firing a steadily increasing number of rockets into Israel every day -- looks "restrained" to some observers.

The only peace Israel has ever established with an Arab state has come through negotiation -- and it has lasted over 25 years. Unfortunately, even that peace will be jeaopardized if Israel continues on its path.

[Hugh R]

Originally posted by fastpat
You want nuclear carnage in the mideast, why, exactly?

Wouldn't necessarily want it, but IF they ever reinstated the draft, I would not have a problem with them nuking several million of them so that my 17 year old son wouldn't have to go over and die for such a stupid cause as "freeing" nations that hate us that we're suposed to be helping.

[Rodeo]

I think it was a pretty good article. I absolutely know that we are being out-flanked by Iran and to a lesser degree by Syria and other bad players in the Middle East, and that our limited resources are being depleted to assist what amounts to an enemy state, Iraq.

The Republican Party and Iran both want us to stay in Iraq. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we are being duped.

Those that call people like me "cut-and-run cowards" are doing the enemy's dirty work. They just don't know it.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by fastpat
You want nuclear carnage in the mideast, why, exactly?

I need a market for my new product; the 1,000,000 SPF sunblock isn't selling as well in AZ as I'd thought.

[jyl]

Originally posted by techweenie
Israel lost his war when they over-reacted, bombed ports, powerplants and bridges mainly used by the 97% of the Lebanese population not supporting Hezbollah. It created a huge natural disaster with one poweplant bombing, resulting in a massive oil spill into the Med.

The Hezbollah response, by comparison -- firing a steadily increasing number of rockets into Israel every day -- looks "restrained" to some observers.

The only peace Israel has ever established with an Arab state has come through negotiation -- and it has lasted over 25 years. Unfortunately, even that peace will be jeaopardized if Israel continues on its path.

The last statement is true enough as far as peace with Arab "states" goes.

But the issue now is peace between Israel and an Arab resistance/insurgency/terrorist group/etc.

Decades of negotiations have failed to produce peace, between Israel and any such non-state group. It seems unlikely, to me, that negotiations can produce peace on the Israel/Lebanon border. It is not in Hezbollahs' interest to have tranquility. A continual low-level war of rockets and raids across the border is more favorable to them.

Israel can either tolerate that low-level war, or take decisive steps to escalate and then win.

As of right now, it looks to me like they chose to escalate, but not far enough and not in the right direction, and thus so far have failed to win.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Hugh R
Wouldn't necessarily want it, but IF they ever reinstated the draft, I would not have a problem with them nuking several million of them so that my 17 year old son wouldn't have to go over and die for such a stupid cause as "freeing" nations that hate us that we're suposed to be helping.

What needs doing is a forced overturn of the travesty foiste on all of us during World War One. During that war, an illegal intervention, the US Supreme Court decided that the words in the 13th Amendment didn't really mean what they say, and that the involuntary servitude imposed by the draft wasn't involuntary. A classic case of Amending the Constitution from the bench.

Let's change that wrong ruling.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by jyl
The last statement is true enough as far as peace with Arab "states" goes.

But the issue now is peace between Israel and an Arab resistance/insurgency/terrorist group/etc.

Decades of negotiations have failed to produce peace, between Israel and any such non-state group. It seems unlikely, to me, that negotiations can produce peace on the Israel/Lebanon border. It is not in Hezbollahs' interest to have tranquility. A continual low-level war of rockets and raids across the border is more favorable to them.

Israel can either tolerate that low-level war, or take decisive steps to escalate and then win.

As of right now, it looks to me like they chose to escalate, but not far enough and not in the right direction, and thus so far have failed to win.

Considering the fact that Israel was partially founded by terrorists an terrorism, in fact Menachem Begin was a member of a terrorist organization as were many in the Israeli government; considering Hizbollah simply a terrorist group is neither rational nor equitable.

[techweenie]

Pat, if you're referring to the bombing of the King David Hotel, that was a long time ago, and there were efforts to avoid bloodshed. I don't think that act is enough to define a 'terrorist founding.' Do you consider the US to have had a 'terrorist founding?'

I will agree that Hezbollah is not purely a terrorist group, since there's a wing that operates through conventional political process and a wing that's violent. I find it irritating that the mindless media keeps repeating 'Hezbollah is hiding among civilians. They are civilians.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by techweenie
Pat, if you're referring to the bombing of the King David Hotel, that was a long time ago, and there were efforts to avoid bloodshed. I don't think that act is enough to define a 'terrorist founding.' Do you consider the US to have had a 'terrorist founding?'

Under the definition of terrorist put forth constantly by the US government the answer would have to be yes.

Of course, I don't share either that conclusion nor the definition bandied about by the US government. That's a primary problem, the US governemnt defines who it wishes as one thing, and those acting in the same manner as something else base solely on it's own agena.

I will agree that Hezbollah is not purely a terrorist group, since there's a wing that operates through conventional political process and a wing that's violent. I find it irritating that the mindless media keeps repeating 'Hezbollah is hiding among civilians. They are civilians.

And Freedom Fighters as well.

[jyl]

Originally posted by fastpat
Considering the fact that Israel was partially founded by terrorists an terrorism, in fact Menachem Begin was a member of a terrorist organization as were many in the Israeli government; considering Hizbollah simply a terrorist group is neither rational nor equitable.

I don't consider Hezbollah simply a terrorist group. I understand it is also a legitimate political party and a major provider of social services. As well as an agent of the Iranian and Syrian governments, and a personality cult . . . it is a complex thing.

As for equity, as I've mentioned on other threads, I am not particularly interested in what is equitable in the Middle East and thus I tend to stay out of those debates. There has been so much inequity accumulated on everyone's hands over the decades, it seems pointless to argue over who's hands are the least dirty.