Get real. If someone was shooting rockets into your house trying to kill you...
POSTED BY: DukKati
UPDATED: Monday, August 14, 2006 05:43
VIEWED: 13192
PAGE 15 of 15
Quote:I think force is the only option, unless you intend to surrender.
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Finn et al,
In reading the thread, there is a clear consensus that the deaths of Lebanese civilians due to Israeli military action helps Hezbollah (and is exactly what they are hoping for). So should Israel have done anything differently?
I guess I'm trying to get a feel for what are the different ways to target an asymmetric threat that is embedded in a civilian population. And is force the best option or just the most straight-forward to implement?
There are various tactics that a military like the IDF can exploit depending on the assessed CONOPS. I’m not familiar enough with the theater to say whether they’ve made the appropriate choices, or what choices they should make. And I’m not privileged to that information anyway.
You really can’t use counter-terrorism special operation forces that far outside your control, without air support, which is tactical bombing. There isn’t anyway to avoid the bombing. And there isn’t anyway to avoid the civilian casualties either. Israel’s goal is to diminish Hezbollah’s arsenal and capability, which means Israel is going to be targeting MRLs and depots and Hezbollah leadership. Targeting leadership is perhaps one of the best ways to deal with an asymmetric threat.
Hezbollah makes certain, however, that military targets will always be in civilian areas. And Hezbollah never wears uniforms in combat. Typically the demographic of the civilian casualties the IDF inflicts are disproportionately young men, which suggest that many, if not most, of these civilian casualties are actually Hezbollah militants and their supporters. Hezbollah carefully controls the media, so that what you read in the news paper or see on CNN about casualties in Hezbollah controlled areas, you can be assured that you’re seeing or reading exactly and only what Hezbollah wants you to see. There is no free press in Lebanon as there is in Israel.
You probably can’t eliminate a terrorist organization with force alone, but you can’t negotiate except from a position of strength. As long as Hezbollah is so well armed, Israel will probably not be able to gain that position of strength unless there is a change in the way the international community perceives the Arab-Israeli conflict. We really have to implement a realistic campaign to disarm Hezbollah.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:And the houses around the depots or launch sites/ex launch sites...
Israel’s goal is to diminish Hezbollah’s arsenal and capability, which means Israel is going to be targeting MRLs and depots and Hezbollah leadership. Targeting leadership is perhaps one of the best ways to deal with an asymmetric threat.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Since I still believe that Israel is carrying out an unprovoked offensive, force is the only option to that end. Hezbollah would not be a threat to israel if israel weren't genocidally exterminating arabs. Even if the zionists, american and israeli, are not intentionally trying to torture and kill arabs, that's still what a surface scan of the operations throughout the ME would appear to be, certainly when viewed from an arab perspective. Invert the situation, there plenty of jews who didn't analyze the situation in germany as "the germans are helping to resettle us to a new jewish homeland for us" which was the stated goal.
Citizen,
good to be back
Geezer,
Glad to see you've made a shift towards a more sane (less bush?) position in my absence I saw a couple of posts back there which made sense.
About Israel, Israel has no way of knowing who its enemy is. If they really want to route out hezbollah, which imho is an insane agenda, sort of like going to war with the united states to wipe out democrats, but they can't possibly know their enemy on sight.
For Hezbollah, every israeli is a solider, and so they view the opposition as possessing no civilians (an indefensible claim, but I'm not hezbollah's apologist) Nortern israel has been pretty much evacuated except for active soldiers and some of their family members, and hezbollah has only short range WWII era rockets, and can't hit anywhere else. This is actually what they're using, I say a reference to hezbollah actually using Katies as there main weapon, and there were a bunch of other ones from that period.
Given the situation, I can see no possible achievement of goals for anyone. Obviously Israel will kick the ass of the lebanese, but they will never make a dent in hezbollah. Every dead hezbollah member is worth two new hezbollah recruits. What a pointless confict.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I think force is the only option, unless you intend to surrender.
There are various tactics that a military like the IDF can exploit depending on the assessed CONOPS. I’m not familiar enough with the theater to say whether they’ve made the appropriate choices, or what choices they should make. And I’m not privileged to that information anyway.
You really can’t use counter-terrorism special operation forces that far outside your control, without air support, which is tactical bombing. There isn’t anyway to avoid the bombing. And there isn’t anyway to avoid the civilian casualties either. Israel’s goal is to diminish Hezbollah’s arsenal and capability, which means Israel is going to be targeting MRLs and depots and Hezbollah leadership. Targeting leadership is perhaps one of the best ways to deal with an asymmetric threat.
Hezbollah makes certain, however, that military targets will always be in civilian areas. And Hezbollah never wears uniforms in combat. Typically the demographic of the civilian casualties the IDF inflicts are disproportionately young men, which suggest that many, if not most, of these civilian casualties are actually Hezbollah militants and their supporters. Hezbollah carefully controls the media, so that what you read in the news paper or see on CNN about casualties in Hezbollah controlled areas, you can be assured that you’re seeing or reading exactly and only what Hezbollah wants you to see. There is no free press in Lebanon as there is in Israel.
You probably can’t eliminate a terrorist organization with force alone, but you can’t negotiate except from a position of strength. As long as Hezbollah is so well armed, Israel will probably not be able to gain that position of strength unless there is a change in the way the international community perceives the Arab-Israeli conflict. We really have to implement a realistic campaign to disarm Hezbollah.
Thanks, Finn.
I guess it's a little late for attempting solutions that do not involve military forces. There's a whole lot of history and animosity on both sides of the border and maybe too much to come back from (which is what really concerns me).
In my ideal world there would be a viable way to convince the Lebanese and Israeli civilians to not support military action as a first option. I was engaging in some blue-sky thinking last night that sort of resolved itself into more of a capitalist approach (granted, my vision of capitalism is a very regulated one). Economic zones on both sides of the border, sort of a Lebanese-Israeli mass market, filled with small businesses so that any disruption by either Hezbollah or the IDF hit thousands of families directly in the pocket book. Shifting the base of support, so to speak.
In other words, totally unrealistic.
* edited to add: Hmmmm. Although calling it the Greater Middle-East Co-Prosperity Sphere would probably not be a good idea.
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Quote:I don’t know what the ultimate solution is either, but I think you’re on the right track. The problem between the Jews and the Arabs in Israel is not one of occupation but economic. The Jews who migrated to Israel brought with them their European culture and created European cities complete with lucrative businesses and a wealthy Middle Class. The Palestinians on the other hand had a standard of living in 1920 that probably hadn’t changed in a thousand years. They were mostly very destitute people with a very wealthy leadership. The Palestinians resented Jewish wealth, which they began to see as foreigners exploiting Palestinian resources, when in fact Jews were just immigrants who knew how to cultivate the land. The root of the problem is economic, I think. Getting Palestinians out of poverty, I think, is one of the solutions.
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
In my ideal world there would be a viable way to convince the Lebanese and Israeli civilians to not support military action as a first option. I was engaging in some blue-sky thinking last night that sort of resolved itself into more of a capitalist approach (granted, my vision of capitalism is a very regulated one). Economic zones on both sides of the border, sort of a Lebanese-Israeli mass market, filled with small businesses so that any disruption by either Hezbollah or the IDF hit thousands of families directly in the pocket book. Shifting the base of support, so to speak.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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