Thursday, July 27, 2006
Is the war in Lebanon winnable?
Given the recent report that Nasrallah may be in Syria, it would seem that Hezbollah can function without him, ala al queda. How do you win a war against such a decentralized enemy? On top of that, as Sandmonkey pointed out, the fight for the Hezbollah peeps has become one about honor - it's not about winning, it's about fighting. Fighting against what? Why? It doesn't matter if, rationally, they would be better off if they cooperated with Israel as a friendly neighbor. Rationality is not that important to them - hatred is where they are coming from.
In order to better understand the mindset of these people, I think you should all watch the following AMAZING interview of ex-terrorists, discussing how and why they were terrorists to begin with, and what exactly can be done to fight them.
It seems that these ex-terrorists say that the only thing that is understood is force. That is why I have come to the conclusion that Israel should just carpet bomb southern Lebanon if they want to win. As I already stated, legally, the Lebanese are in fact collectively responsible for the actions of Hezbollah - but particularly the Shia Lebanese. Israel already is letting the Lebanese who do not want to fight leave. They are minimizing civilian deaths. Only a carpet bombing will truly root out Hezbollah, and then hopefully afterwards, an international force can come in and rebuild Lebanon, and make it better than it ever was - ala what the allies did after WWII.
I honestly believe this is the only way to win the war. Anything less than this will not work.
But thankfully, Condi Rice sees things as they are. She refuses to negotiate merely for a cease fire, because she sees it is not a solution to the problem. Lasting peace is the only answer, according to Condi.
I do not believe lasting peace is possible. But in order to get a temporary detante - which is alll one can hope for in the Middle East - then it seems that overwhelming force must be used.
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7 comments:
Albion:
I already said what the point is. Temporary detante. And I am sure Israel and the US will pay the brunt of the rebuilding of Lebanon. Just look at the Marshall Plan, post WWII. It was actually quite a success. I envision something somewhat similar.
Your point about oil is simply untrue. It is not about oil. It is about the future of western civilization. And America is not the imperialist. Islamofacists are the imperialists.
Finally, total disarmament is the only condition for cease fire, yes. Because anything less only allows Hezbollah to reload and remain in power. This unacceptable, and kind of makes the whole exercise in Lebanon pointless.
In fact, Sandmonkey already laid out the ultimate smackdown for the argument that it is about the oil.
http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/04/it-wasnt-about-oil-stupid.html
It was not about the oil, it is not about the oil.
Has America been perfect? No. But they are not imperialist. Prior to the fall of the USSR, most of the wars fought, right or wrong, were fought under the perview of a notion that America needed to have its influence felt around the world in order to combat communism. Furthermore, you are forgetting about the massive amount of good and aid that the United States has brought upon the world. The US has gone to war simply for humanitarian reasons on multiple occasions.
You may not be afraid of Islamofacists, but you should be. They seek to destroy you and Western civilization, as witnessed by the sadly large number of terrorist attacks that have been wrought upon the world by the Islamofacists.
Within their nations, women are second class citizens at best, there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom of religion, and there is plonky socialism that has dessimated their economies - which they of course blame the west on.
These people are born to hate, and purposely kept ignorant. The only way to win the ultimate war is to spread truth and knowledge around the world - win the war on ideas. But that will take decades at best. In the meantime, the only thing that they understand is force, since that is the only thing they were taught to respect.
Miss moonlight, look up the definition of imperialism, you obviously have no idea what it means, what did we conquer? what territory have we siezed? is Europe an american territory? howabout Japan? Bosnia?
as far as Israel goes, they've tried appeasement with these clowns for 60 years to no avail, the Arabs still insist the state of Israel must be destroyed, well 60 years of random bombing, rockets, and general mayhem is enough! especially from a bunch of chickenshit weasels who shoot at their enemy while hiding behind schoolchildren.
and miss Moonlight, here's a Dr. you ought to see
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/07/brilliance-of-new-barbarians.html
-Israel doesn't have enough aircraft or large enough aircraft to "carpet-bomb" anything.
-Carpet bombing itself is a fundementally outdated tactic. Last used during the Vietnam war, and not since. Not even in the Gulf War (CNN lied).
-...and it's not about oil either. Israel doesn't have enough oil to squabble over. With or without the oil, the Moslems would (and were) still be killing Jews. See Sandmonkey...
"...imperialist control..."
-Chompskybot phrase.
"You see no hypocrisy in unrepentently killing people and then telling them they have no right to defend themselves..."
-No. I see the hypocrisy in the terrorist group that you are defending killing Jews and you telling the readers of this blog that Jews have no right to defend themselves against a genocidal death cult.
Hizballah has no legal right to exist. It's members, to the core, are fanatical killers. They are most certainly not the duly recognized army of Lebanon. Just armed thugs and genociders. Extremely well armed thugs and genociders.
"And so the only solution, the final solution if you will, is total war until the "Islamofascists" are all dead or give up?"
-If I will? I will most certainly not, asshole.
-Why are you looking for a final solution? Why does the "Jewish problem" vex you so much that you feel inclined to pontificate broadly about a subject you clearly haven't a clue about?
-As long as they persist in killing my people, I fail to see any injustice in Israels military killing them right back. It's not like this is ever gonna see a court of law anyway. Dead terrorists don't kill anymore.
-If it turns out that this means a 50 mile deep flat, dead, and salted zone all the way around Israels borders, than so be it. Whatever it takes to stay alive...
CLEAR,
R
The notion of imperialism means taking over someone else's soverign land in a foreign nation, as a way and means of extending an empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism
America and Israel are not empires, and that is NOT why wars have been fought in the past fifty years - whether you agree with their reasoning or not.
America generally stays in the foreign lands only to help rebuild the nations (yes, this includes Iraq). There are military bases, but most of them are there with full support of the local populations or governments. (see: Cuba as the exception) Israel has taken land it won in war and tried to give it back right afterwards, on the ground that they get peace, and were refused. They then kept the land for their military purposes.
Both examples have nothing to do with "empire building."
Oh, and Israel has no oil, and neither does Lebanon. So it cannot be about the oil in Israel, on top of the fact that it cannot be about the oil in Iraq.
Carpet bombing will not work. The hezbillans have been preparing for this, and built underground tunnels.
There is no solution other than overwhelming force directed into the area to root out and destroy the hezbillans. Unfortunately neither Peretz nor Olmert appears to have the gonads for what it will take.
Yes this is going to result in lots of dead Lebanese. Lebanon made a concious choice to allow hezb to remain. They get to pay the price for this choice. They haven't really been hurt yet as Israel has not responded in force. Yet. That is a result of a lefty handwringing government afraid to fight for itself and its people.
If you go in, go in in force, kill as many as possible, ratchet up their pain, do it quickly, do it forcefully, so that at the end of the operation, the enemy is hurting badly. Carpet bombing wont help.
Nice job Anon...
===
Allow me to quote myself, misspellings and all...
"-Israel doesn't have enough aircraft or large enough aircraft to "carpet-bomb" anything.
-Carpet bombing itself is a fundementally outdated tactic. Last used during the Vietnam war, and not since. Not even in the Gulf War (CNN lied)."
=
Whats more, even if the IAF had the striking power to "carpet-bomb" (they still don't and never have), it chews up the ground something awful. Making it difficult for attackers to advance, and even easier to defend.
Only the US Air Force has enough heavy bombers available to carpet-bomb, (last used in 1973's Operation Linebacker II, North Vietnam). Russia might still have enough heavy bombers to pull off a carpet bombing strike, but they didn't use the tactic or the strategy either in Afghanistan or in Chechnya.
So...
One more time for the simple people.
There is no carpet bombing going on.
===
jeexus, they get so upset over something that's not happening, just wait'll they get a load of Project Blue Concrete.
ONE TON
DAVID'S SLING,
R
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