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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:58 pm Post subject: How Hezbollah can 'win' |
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Jack Kelly pulls no punches, says exactly what needs to be said. (emphasis mine)
| Quote: | How Hezbollah can 'win'
August 5, 2006
HEZBOLLAH and its sponsors, Iran and Syria, are relying upon our soft hearts and softer heads to destroy us.
Many think Israel suffered a major defeat last Sunday when the Israeli air force bombed a building in the village of Qana, near the Lebanese port city of Tyre. Initial reports were that 57 people - most of them women and children - had been killed. The Red Crescent (the Muslim version of the Red Cross) has been able to confirm only 28 deaths.
The bombing's aftermath featured some of the most dramatic pictures of the war. Several featured a man wearing an orange reflective vest and a green helmet, carrying a dead child from the rubble to an ambulance.
Dr. Richard North, a British Web logger, noticed something odd about the photos. Some of the workers are wearing different gear in different photos, yet they were clearly carrying the same corpse. For instance, by the time the man carrying the dead child reached the ambulance, he had shed both the green helmet and the reflective vest. The time stamps on the photos suggested they'd been taken hours apart.
The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse denied the photos had been staged.
But the event clearly was stage-managed by Hezbollah. Within hours of the first reports of the tragedy in Qana, there was a demonstration in Beirut. The protesters had a 30-foot color banner featuring a photograph of Condoleezza Rice, and an Arabic caption blaming her for what happened there. The banner - at least that portion of it with Ms. Rice's photograph - had to have been prepared before Israel dropped its bombs.
"Hezbollah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli air force," charged Libanoscopie, a Lebanese Christian Web site.
I won't address in this column the interesting question of why so much international outrage is directed at the Israelis for the accidental killing of civilians, and so little at Hezbollah for its deliberate efforts to kill Israeli civilians, and its use of Lebanese civilians as human shields.
Nor will I address the equally interesting question of whether some in the news media are dupes of Hezbollah propaganda, or complicit in it.
The point I want to emphasize today is that Hezbollah's hopes for victory depend entirely on its propaganda campaign.
What constitutes "victory" for Hezbollah is imposition of a cease-fire that will prevent Israel from crippling the terror group, and would permit Syria and Iran to rearm it.
There is little Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran can do to impose such a cease-fire by force of arms. The terror group can "win" only by so tugging on heartstrings in the West that we act contrary to our interests (again).
Support for Hezbollah in Europe and the Middle East has surged since Qana, wrote the Washington Post's Jefferson Morley on Wednesday.
But world opinion is overrated. Intellectually and morally, it is no more valuable than Mel Gibson's opinion, after he has consumed a bottle of tequila. But leave that aside. The only non-Israeli whose opinion matters much to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is President Bush, who remains steadfast in his support.
The propaganda war matters more than ever before, but still matters less than what happens on the battlefield, where Hezbollah is getting its clock cleaned, though that's difficult to tell from the news coverage.
If President Bush doesn't succumb to world opinion, Israel will win, soon, a decisive victory. And then world opinion will change.
Jack Kelly is a member of The Blade’s national bureau.
Toledo Blade |
Just give the Israelis the time they need to finish the job, Mr. President.
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Schadow
Vice Admiral
Joined: 30 Sep 2004
Posts: 936
Location: Huntsville, Alabama
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject: Re: How Hezbollah can 'win' |
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| shawa wrote: | | Just give the Israelis the time they need to finish the job, Mr. President. |
I think the President is doing just that. The so-called 'draft resolution' about to be presented to the UN Insecurity Council will be unacceptable to both sides and the fighting will continue. I'm sure Bolton knows that. Israel's excellent Air Force will, given time, virtually wipe out Hezbollah's arms supply. Troubling is the news that Hezbollah has urgently called on Iran to supply surface-to-air missiles (as fast as Russia can build them!). Hezbollah MUST be denied SAMs even if the IAF has to intercept them en route.
While Israel's Air Force is doing a first-rate job, I'm not so sure about the capabilities of their army. While I'm confident they have a competent officer corps, the grunts may be a different matter. They are undoubtedly patriots, but some of the pictures coming back indicate some pretty bewildered puppies on the ground in Lebanon. (I grant that I may be unfairly comparing them to our guys in Iraq.) Israel's mandatory military service/reserves program is a draft by any other name and the disgruntlement rate is probably high. The Hezbos could win a ground-only war.
Any sovereign nation, especially one created by the UN itself, must have the right to do whatever it takes to defend against attack to the point of total victory over the attacker. No amount of 'cease fires' will do.
Schadow
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Capt, 8th U.S. Army, Korea '53 - '54 |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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Great job by Bolton and team.
This resolution is very clever. It will effectively give the Israelis diplomatic cover while they continue to pound Hizbollah. And Hezbos will certainly not agree to the second part of the resolution.
Typically, the French stepped in to negotiate for the terrorists. (????)
In any event, Bolton out-foxed the French and Condi provided the public show of "diplomacy".
Israel has its 'strategerie' that will doom the Hezzis.
Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse has a good rundown on what Israelis are accomplishing.
Here's an excerpt:
| Quote: | But in the last few days, the Israelis have attacked in much larger formations, overwhelming the pockets of Hizbullah fighters and causing them to either flee or be killed. The J-Post reports:
At least ten Hizbullah operatives were killed and three were captured overnight.
Meanwhile, it was released on Sunday that in the past 48 hours, special forces operated south of Tyre. The troops destroyed 3 rocket launchers, a bunker, three weapons warehouses, and three cars used to transport rockets.
Two reserve soldiers were killed in clashes with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Army forces killed at least 50 Hizbullah guerillas over the weekend, the IDF said.
The raid at Baalbek and the most recent Special Forces op south of Tyre killed dozens more. And given the amount of ordinance expended by the IAF, one has to assume that many Hizbullah fighters have died as the result of bombings.
The point is very simple; Hizbullah fighters are dying in droves, their infrastructure is being smashed to pieces, they are being thrown out of positions in southern Lebanon they’ve occupied since Israel left in 2000, and conversely, they have failed to inflict significant casualties on the IAF although they do very well killing unarmed civilians by launching barrages of rockets indiscriminately into the towns and villages of northern Israel.
Would someone please explain how Hizbullah is “winning” anything except perhaps the race to have the most martyrs claim those 72 virgins in the afterlife?
~snip~
The pathetic nature of Hizbullah’s “success” – the fact that they aren’t running away in terror or surrendering as other, less fanatical Arab armies have done in the past – says much more about those who are lionizing the terrorists than it does about whether they are “winning” the war in any real sense of the word. Because when the dust settles and hostilities end, Israel will have a buffer zone of one kind of another, Hizbullah will be prevented from re-occupying positions they held for nearly 6 years prior to the war, and given Israeli-American insistence, Nasrallah’s fanatics will be disarmed probably by having his militia folded into the Lebanese army.
And this is a Hizbullah “victory?”
Ah, but the Hiz are heroes in the Arab street you say! Nasrallah will be more powerful in Lebanese politics, you crow! As for the former, my aunt Mabel would be popular in the Arab street if she was the beneficiary of the dizzying spin being put on this conflict in the Arab and western press.
~snip~
The western press always seems able to find present or former State Department officials or analysts of one kind or another who will wail on cue about how badly the war has gone for Israel and how the conflict has “empowered” Hizbullah. These doomsayers have made their prognostications based not what has been happening on the battlefield but what they perceive to be Israel’s weakness in not vanquishing Hizbullah in 6 days – that being the standard set by the international punditariat for a clear Israeli victory. Anything more and either the IDF is losing its edge or they have met their match on the battlefield in Hizbullah. This is so clearly tommyrot.
Just look at a map of Israeli positions today and see that they have trapped Hizbullah’s remaining fighters in a kill zone from the border to the Litani River. With roads and bridges impassable, those Hiz fighters are doomed unless they surrender.
Given the fact that Nasrallah has rejected out of hand the provisions in the cease fire resolution that will probably be passed Tuesday or Wednesday, Israel will have a free hand to continue to kill his fighters, bust up his remaining infrastructure, and weaken his organization where it counts – its ability to harm the Jewish state.
Will that matter to those who are busy spinning Israel’s inevitable defeat? Probably not. But then, I doubt the Israelis care very much just as long as they can prevent Hizbullah from harming their citizens whenever they feel like it.
Now that smells like victory… |
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/08/06/spinning-israels-defeat/
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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