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mary123
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 268
Location: Canada - God's most perfect creation
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 Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:48 am Post subject: A Disciplined Hezbollah Surprises Israel With Its Tactics |
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Things are not going according to the plan that Bush and Israel thought this war was supposed to. They gravely underestimated the enemy and Israel is now paying a big price.
| Quote: | It is Hezbollah’s skillful use of those weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided antitank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about two miles — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces.
Hezbollah’s Russian-made antitank missiles, designed to penetrate armor, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern tank, the Merkava, on about 20 percent of their hits, Israeli tank commanders at the front said.
Hezbollah has also used antitank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical cement block wall and the second going off inside.
“They use them like artillery to hit houses,” said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently the Israeli Army’s director of intelligence analysis. “They can use them accurately up to even three kilometers, and they go through a wall like through the armor of a tank."
Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge out of the ground, fire a shoulder-held antitank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armored columns.
“We know what they have and how they work,” General Kuperwasser said. “But we don’t know where all the tunnels are. So they can achieve tactical surprise.”
The antitank missiles are the “main fear” for Israeli troops, said David Ben-Nun, 24, an enlisted man in the Nahal brigade who just returned from a week in Lebanon. The troops do not linger long in any house because of hidden missile crews. “You can’t even see them,” he said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07hezbollah.html
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DSquared
aka Aristotleded24
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5570
Location: Winnipeg
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 1:36 am Post subject: |
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This is simply not good. Indications are that Israel wants the land they're going after, and is going to fight very hard to grab it. The harder they fight, the uglier it gets. 
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beluga2
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 287
Location: VanCity
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Hezbollah has also used antitank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical cement block wall and the second going off inside. |
What are those Israelis doing, "sheltering" in civilian houses? Shouldn't they be standing out in a field somewhere wearing signs saying "Here I am, come and shoot me" like they expect Hezbollah fighters to do? |
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Senor Magoo
He's got a big one
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 8700
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Maybe there weren't civilians in the houses.
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thwap
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 4564
Location: Hamilton
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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No Israeli civilians anyways, so it doesn't matter.
Most of the IDF's bullshit rationalizations have been about civilians in the area.
You do realize of course, that cops try to avoid gun-battles because civilians might get hurt?
In the case of an illegal invasion, Israel has no right to subject civilian areas to massive aerial bombardment just because their purported enemy was firing rockets at them from that general vicinity.
If they don't want to engage in soldier-to-soldier combat and minimize civilian casualties, then they shouldn't have invaded.
And if they didn't want Hezbollah to capture their soldiers, they shouldn't have kidnapped so many Lebanese and/or Hezbollah (Lebanese resistance fighters).
And if the USA doesn't want Syria and Iran to arm the Lebanese Shiite resistance (Hezbollah) they ought not to arm Israel to the teeth with far, far, more in the way of advanced weaponry.
And if Israel didn't want Hezbollah to exist, Israel shouldn't have launched their illegal invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that was based on fraud and that was designed to eliminate the PLO which had been behaving itself and calling for negotiations (from the sources I read as opposed to the Conrad Black/Izzy Asper press).
And if they didn't want the PLO and world condemnation of the Occupation, they should end the occupation and give the Palestinians a viable state of their own and stop it with the racist clap-trap about crazed, murderous Arabs who hate people for the sake of hating them.
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Red T shirt
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 949
Location: Port Hope
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| Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Senor Magoo wrote: | | Maybe there weren't civilians in the houses. |
Maybe the civilians were in the hospital, the morgue, or strapped to the hood of an Israeli military vehicle. |
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mary123
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 268
Location: Canada - God's most perfect creation
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| Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Maybe if Syrian soldiers had not left Lebanon, this whole mess would not have happened. Was Lebanon set up for slaughter at the hands of Israel?
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Some Lebanese despised the Syrian presence in their country. They forgot that Syrian forces were in the country at the request of their government, the Arab and international community to keep peace in the aftermath of the long and brutal civil war.
It was also forgotten that throughout Syrian presence in Lebanon, civilians were not bombed, the country's infrastructure was intact, the economy was recovering and Lebanon was peaceful.
That was not good enough. Syria was called a colonial power that must be removed. The US, Israel and France led many Lebanese and Arab calls for the withdrawal of Syrian forces. When we warned that withdrawal plays into the hands of foreign powers who intend to destroy Hezbollah and with it Lebanon, we were called "conspiracy theorists". Well, we "conspiracy theorists" did not get our wish, unfortunately. Unfortunately too, "conspiracy planners" got their wish.
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http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/08/08/10058387.html |
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TS.
Delicious schadenfreude
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 14585
Location: Toronto, ON
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| Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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It should not be forgotten that Lebanese demonstrated by the tens of thousands to have Syria withdraw.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson |
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al-Qa'bong
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6041
Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 8:41 pm Post subject: |
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There were also some huge demonstrations that called for the Syrians to stay. I said at the time (on babble somewhere) that the Syrian presence kept the peace (they were invited by a Maronite president after all) and prevented Israel from attacking Lebanon again.
| Quote: | | Syria was called a colonial power that must be removed. The US, Israel and France led many Lebanese and Arab calls for the withdrawal of Syrian forces. |
This is rich. Lebanon is part of historical Syria, but was cleaved away from the rest of Syria by the French colonialists in order to to create a country with a Christian majority.
Other than Lebanese Phalangists and Arab leaders of US puppet states, I wonder how many Arabs called for Syria to leave Lebanon.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6041
Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:12 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | One member of an Israeli tank crew who had just left Lebanon told the Guardian: "It's terrible. You do not fight anti-tank teams with tanks. You use infantry supported by artillery and helicopters. Wide valleys without shelter are the wrong place to use tanks."
Although he said Hizbullah's weapons had been supplied by Iran, Lt Col Rafowicz admitted the militants' prowess also stemmed from its morale and organisation. They are very keen to engage our forces. They are not wearing suicide bomb belts but they are not afraid to die, which makes deterrence very difficult."
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Don't mess with the Lebanese
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6041
Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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CMOT Dibbler posted this interesting article on babble:
What the Hell has happened to the Army?
| Quote: | On the 32nd day of the war, Hizbullah is still standing and fighting. That by itself is a stunning feat: a small guerilla organization, with a few thousand fighters, is standing up to one of the strongest armies in the world and has not been broken after a month of "pulverizing". Since 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan have repeatedly been beaten in wars that were much shorter.
As I have already said: if a light-weight boxer is fighting a heavy-weight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his - whatever the count of points says.
In the test of results - the only one that counts in war - the strategic and tactical command of Hizbullah is decidedly better than that of our own army. All along, our army's strategy has been primitive, brutal and unsophisticated.
Clearly, Hizbullah has prepared well for this war - while the Israeli command has prepared for a quite different war.
On the level of individual fighters, the Hizbullah are not inferior to our soldiers, neither in bravery nor in initiative...
...More than once it has been said in this column that an army that has been acting for many years as a colonial police force against the Palestinian population - "terrorists", women and children - and spending its time running after stone-throwing boys, cannot remain an efficient army. The test of results confirms this. |
Who really has the "purity of arms" here?
In Pity the Nation, Robert Fisk told of a US officer who said in 1983 that the IDF, despite its equipment and all the hype, was a third rate army.
_________________
"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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thwap
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 4564
Location: Hamilton
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| Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Uri Averny from Counterpunch, on the fall-out:
| Quote: | On the Israeli side: 154 dead--117 of them soldiers. 3970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.
On the Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number of Hizbullah fighters dead and wounded.
More than a million refugees on both sides.
So what has been achieved for this terrible price?
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FROM THE deluge of accusations and gripes, one slogan stands out , a slogan that must send a cold shiver down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the politicians did not let the army win."
Exactly as I wrote two weeks ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old cry "they stabbed the army in the back!"
This is how it goes: At long last, two days before the end, the land offensive started to roll. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves, it was a dazzling success. And then, when we were on the verge of a great victory, the cease-fire came into effect.
There is not a single word of truth in this.
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BUT THESE facts are not yet clear to the general public. The brain-washing by the military commentators and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at the time, has turned the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation into a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political leadership to stop it is now being seen by many as an act of defeatist, spineless, corrupt and even treasonous politicians.
And that is exactly the new slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising its ugly head.
After World War I, in similar circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the back of the victorious army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry him to power--and on to World War II.
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And another post-mortem by William S. Lind
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Most importantly, an Islamic Fourth Generation entity, Hezbollah, will now point the way throughout the Arab and larger Islamic world to a future in which Israel can be defeated. That will have vast ramifications, and not for Israel alone. Hundreds of millions of Moslems will believe that the same Fourth Generation war that defeated hated Israel can beat equally-hated America, its "coalitions" and its allied Arab and Moslem regimes. Future events seem more likely to confirm that belief than to undermine it.
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Unfortunately for states generally, Israel appears to have no good options when hostilities recommence. It can continue to grind forward on the ground in southern Lebanon, paying bitterly for each foot of ground, and perhaps eventually denying Hezbollah some of its rocket-launching sites. But it cannot hold what it takes. It may strive for a more robust U.N. force, but what country wants to fight Hezbollah? Any occupier of southern Lebanon that is not there with Hezbollah's permission will face the same guerrilla war Israel already fought and lost. Most probably, Israel will escalate by taking the war to Syria or Iran, and what will be a strategy of desperation. That too will fail, after it plunges the whole region into a war the outcome of which will be catastrophic for the United States as well as for Israel.
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Peace and justice are once again, the only sensible course.
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al-Qa'bong
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6041
Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Exactly as I wrote two weeks ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old cry "they stabbed the army in the back!" |
In a hospital somewhere in Tel Aviv there's a little IDF corporal, with bandages over his eyes, looking for someone to blame.
_________________
"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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Tehanu
More or less, more or less
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 17640
Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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This seems like the right thread to put this in: Apparently heads are starting to roll in the IDF over how the war -- sorry, invasion -- um, punitive action -- er, recent conflict was handled.
| Quote: | JERUSALEM - Israel's Defence Ministry has suspended a review of the military's performance during the war against Hezbollah, awaiting a government decision on whether to order a broader inquiry, officials said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is under growing public pressure to approve an independent investigation, with the power to dismiss top officials. Some reserve soldiers and bereaved parents have already demanded that Olmert and other wartime leaders step down.
... The war, launched just hours after Hezbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border raid July 12, enjoyed broad public support at the outset, but lost favour after Olmert accepted a United Nations-brokered truce without crushing Hezbollah or winning the captives' release.
The deaths of 34 soldiers in last-minute battles just before the truce took hold only deepened the outrage, as have reports that the military was so ill-prepared that it didn't even have enough food, water or bullets for its fighters.
... Olmert has sidestepped calls for such an inquiry. However, he said Monday he wouldn't be party to "self-flagellation" and that Israel doesn't have the luxury to conduct such a drawn-out investigation.
Instead, he's asked Attorney General Meni Mazuz to draw up a list of alternative reviews that could be conducted, and that list was to be ready within a day or two, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
One such alternative would be the much-criticized review that Defence Minister Amir Peretz ordered shortly after last week's ceasefire took hold. Security officials said that review — which was not to include Peretz's own performance — was suspended after just a day's work until Olmert and his cabinet decide which way to go.
... Although calls for an inquiry into the war have grown louder with each passing day, they do not necessarily pose a threat to the Olmert government's survival. None of the members of the governing coalition have an interest in dissolving parliament, and the opposition doesn't have enough votes to do so.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire that ended the war has proven to be as fragile as its detractors forecast, with European countries balking at sending large numbers of peacekeepers, and Israel objecting to the inclusion of troops from countries that don't recognize it.
... The UN ceasefire resolution does not explicitly give Israel authority to block countries from joining the peacekeeping mission, but it does say the force should "co-ordinate its activities ... with the government of Lebanon and government of Israel." |
The Toronto Star |
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Sky Marshall
*BANNED*
Joined: 21 Aug 2006
Posts: 127
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sandy47
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 289
Location: London, ON.
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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oooops! One of harper's loose-lipped looneys escaped the asylum and found an open mic.  |
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TS.
Delicious schadenfreude
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 14585
Location: Toronto, ON
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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This morning David Horowitz was on "The Contrarians" on CBC Radio One and said that Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians are "worse than the Nazis." That man is a enormous spewing bag of bile and hatred. I listended to him ranting on and on about the crimes of the left and how the right is pure and good. I was so absolutely disgusted. The fact that the CBC would give airtime to such an unreconstructed bigot is apalling. I encourage each and every poster here to join me in writing letters/e-mails of complaint to the CBC.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson |
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Tehanu
More or less, more or less
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 17640
Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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"The Contrarions" pisses me off. It's as though the CBC is trying to "prove" it doesn't have a "liberal bias." There was a program about feminism I heard a little while ago which had me seething.
It wouldn't be so bad but the level of analysis is puerile. Let's go against the "politically correct" view and highlight "unpopular" ideas. Well, some of those ideas are more than popular enough already, among the racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes.
And yes, scare quotes are deliberate. |
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Catchfire
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 259
Location: Montréal
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| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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Ach! That feminsm episode of "The Contrarians" left me and my partner furious! He sets up two conservative anti-feminist female professors for his side, and some moronic high school student who used to write folk songs to feminist icons when she was younger on the side of feminism, who also thinks feminism is dead. And then he set up an actual, thoughtful, intelligent feminist and asked her some questions that she responds to well, like
Idiot Contrarian: "What issues do feminsts fight for today?"
Smart Feminst: "Wow. There's hundreds."
I.C. (snappily): "Give me a top five."
S.F.: "Well, there's poverty, child care, AIDS, violence."
And then they cut away from the interview, and the asshole host glosses her contribution like this: "Well, I guess those are feminsts issues since half the people they affect are women...anyway, more anti-feminist drivel from this esteemed professor from England!"
We wrote nasty emails and then promptly stopped listening to his pathetic show. What a prick. |
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transplant
Starting Over Again
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 1710
Location: somewhere between here and there
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:37 am Post subject: |
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| TS. wrote: | | I listended to him ranting on and on about the crimes of the left and how the right is pure and good. |
Yeah, but I did get a good chuckle when he asserted that 30 years ago no college or university professor in the US would have brought their politics into their teaching or the classroom. What rock did he live under 30 years ago??? What a hoot!  |
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TS.
Delicious schadenfreude
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 14585
Location: Toronto, ON
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:33 am Post subject: |
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Also ridiculous (and kinda scary) is that he calls himself a moderate conservative. I would hate to see what he would call a radical conservative. 
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson |
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thwap
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 4564
Location: Hamilton
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 10:43 am Post subject: |
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"Contrarians," pffft.
What a waste of a word.
No, you're not a "contrarian," you're an asshole and a moron.
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads! |
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leftcoastguy
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5977
Location: Leftcoast
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 10:51 am Post subject: |
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| TS. wrote: | | This morning David Horowitz was on "The Contrarians" on CBC Radio One and said that Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians are "worse than the Nazis." That man is a enormous spewing bag of bile and hatred. I listended to him ranting on and on about the crimes of the left and how the right is pure and good. I was so absolutely disgusted. The fact that the CBC would give airtime to such an unreconstructed bigot is apalling. I encourage each and every poster here to join me in writing letters/e-mails of complaint to the CBC. |
TS
Excellent suggestion - I heard the diatribe as well and was very dismayed that the CBC would provide air time to such a demented and hateful person as Horowitz.
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West Coast Tiger
Super-Link Mistress
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3060
Location: Obviously Concealed
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| TS. wrote: | | This morning David Horowitz was on "The Contrarians" on CBC Radio One... |
Say what???  You guys have GOT to be kidding me.
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~ Rational ravings from a relative stranger in a troubled paradise. ~ |
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King Mob
Member
Joined: 24 May 2006
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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Not sure if any of you have heard about the war nerd, but he's had a pretty good analysis of the events of the war in Lebanon (and pretty much any war he's talked about), even though it is quite coarse (as is most writing from the exile).
A Hizbulla Upon All of Thee
| Quote: | As long as the IDF was beating up on Hamas down in Gaza, it could hide its weakness most of the time. Not all of the time -- pretty sloppy, letting Hamas commandos tunnel right into that base, blast a tank and kidnap poor baby Shalit right while he was thinking up his next capsule review. Still, except for the occasional slip, the IDF was safe in its F-16s and Merkavas, facing Pals with nothing but rifles and old RPGs. It's easy to look tough rolling through refugee camps in the world's most heavily armored tank.
But as you may recall, those tanks got a real different reception when they chased Hezbollah's raiding party back into Lebanon after the Hezzies killed three IDF soldiers and kidnapped another two. The IDF mid-ranking commanders had to act fast because the Gaza command was taking heat for not pursuing Shalit's kidnappers fast enough. So they shouted, "Charge!" and the first Merkava steamed over the border.
Guess how far it got. Ten meters. Ten goddamn meters. Then KABOOM! A Hezbollah mine or shaped charge turned it into a very expensive oven, with four crew killed. Another IDF soldier died trying to rescue them. So within a few minutes the IDF had lost eight men. As far as I know, Hezbollah's losses were zero.
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And a more recent one...
| Quote: | Once they'd provoked the massive attack they hoped for, Hezbollah assumed the defensive, sticking to their bunkers and launching an incredible number of guided and unguided missiles against the Israelis. The most devastating weapon they have is the RPG 29, the newest Russian version of our old friend the RPG 7. The RPG 29 seems to be able to knock out the IDF's MBT, the Merkava 4. That's a big, big blow to the IDF, because the newer Merkavas are supposed to be invulnerable to anything but huge shaped charges laid as mines. They're equipped with all the latest tricks in anti-missile defenses, like reactive armor and screens that are supposed to make the warhead detonate prematurely -- kind of like premature ejaculation for RPGs. ("Oh jeez, sorry honey, I guess I just got too excited, your turret's so damn sexy....") The RPG 29 has a simple but effective counter for all this last-ditch defensive stuff: a tandem warhead, where the first warhead blasts the reactive armor or screen and the second, the really deadly shaped-charge one, has a free path right into the tank. By sticking to their bunkers, where they could fire from safety at the Merkavas, the Hezbollah antitank teams destroyed the Merkava 4's rep in a few weeks.
At sea Hezbollah used the same strategy: use guided missiles against high-value targets. Israel has been used to having control of the Mediterranean, and using its navy as low-cost, mobile artillery to blast enemy positions (and picnics). Hezbollah served notice that them days are over by hitting an Israeli gunboat with a guided weapon of some kind. It's not clear what they used, either an Iranian antiship missile or something homemade, some kind of model aircraft carrying a few pounds of C-4. Personally I'm hoping it turns out to be the Ace Hardware version, some dweeb's model Cessna, the kind you see sad Asian kids flying around your local high-school parking lot on weekends, modified by the Bill Murray character in Caddyshack -- you know where he makes models of the gopher's little friends, "the harmless bunny rabbit" and so on? I'm not sure what a Hezbollah model-airplane dweeb would make out of plastic explosive -- in fact, I'm not sure what a Hezbollah dweeb would look like if one even exists -- but it'd have to be something resembling IDF naval vessels' little friends, like a claymation US congressman with a sack of money in his teeth, maybe. Whatever it was, the contraption worked: killed four IDF crew, set the gunboat on fire, and taught the Israeli Navy a little respect. |
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DefenestratedGrooveMonkey
Member
Joined: 24 Jun 2006
Posts: 41
Location: Monkeys live in trees.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| King Mob wrote: | | Not sure if any of you have heard about the war nerd, but he's had a pretty good analysis of the events of the war in Lebanon (and pretty much any war he's talked about), even though it is quite coarse (as is most writing from the exile). |
Second the recommendation. Gary Brecher is irreverent, but very readable if you're not a fellow "war nerd". He's pretty accurate and well-informed, too. Finally, like most nerds, his main interest is in being factually correct, so you don't have to worry about political spin.
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"Insert pithy, out-of-context slice of fortune-cookie wisdom here." |
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Wee Mousie
thereby hangs a tail
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 2295
Location: 'twixt cinder block and drywall.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Earlier this month Gwynne Dyer identified some part of the psychology behind the American-Israeli stratagems and tactics.
| Quote: |
Seeking Invulnerability
By Gwynne Dyer
August 7, 2006
The three most ill-considered (and probably doomed) political
enterprises on the international political scene today are the Israeli
assault on Lebanon, the US campaign to force Iran to renounce its alleged
nuclear weapons programme, and the similar campaign that has been mounted
against North Korea. What common theme unites these three enterprises?
The quest for invulnerability for one side, at the expense of total
vulnerability for the other.
Between 1945 and about 1970, the United States went through one of
the most difficult intellectual and emotional transitions in history. The
US began that period as the home of almost half the world's surviving
industrial capacity and the sole possessor of the ultimate weapon, the
atomic bomb. It was unchallengeable and invulnerable. Yet by 1970 it was
ready to concede nuclear weapons parity to the Soviet Union, an openly
hostile totalitarian state, and was negotiating arms-control agreements
that limited missile numbers but guaranteed the Soviets the ability to
destroy the United States. . . .
. . . . Accepting America's vulnerability was so emotionally repugnant that
many leading politicians and generals spent the rest of their careers
promoting new technologies like "Star Wars" that they hoped might restore
US invulnerability, but most of the US political and military elite had the
wisdom and maturity to support the policy. America could use their like
today. So could Israel.
Israel's period of invulnerability began later, after the 1973 war,
and has lasted far longer. . . .
. . . . In one sense, this war is an absurd attempt to eliminate that last
little vulnerability by grossly disproportionate means. . . .
. . . . Now come to the United States and its flailing pseudo-diplomatic
attempts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons -- or, indeed, its
equally ham-fisted attempts to force North Korea to give up the nukes it
claims to have already built. The tactics it has adopted are as ignorant of
the opposing side's psychology as they are revealing of its own.
The US has made blocking the nuclear weapons ambitions of these two
countries an absolute priority in its foreign policy, because it will no
longer accept even the slightest vulnerability to countries or forces it
sees as hostile. . . .
. . . . America's vulnerability is tiny; theirs is almost total. It would
be worthwhile to offer both of them a commitment that the US will stop
trying to overthrow their regimes, and leave their fate in the hands of
their own peoples, in return for renouncing their nuclear weapons
ambitions. It worked with Libya's Gaddafy, after all. What is truly
astonishing is that this approach has simply not been tried with either
North Korea or Iran.
Link to Full Article
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Rather than equating Hezbollah to Nazis, a much clearer link has been established with the present Neocon powers
As has been previously noted, a total lack of empathy is the hallmark of psychopaths, the Nazi Regime of Germany and the Bush Administration in Washington.
Make any serious attempt to find the nearest contender for that ever-persent Nazi label, and you find yourself in ironic territory.
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Oded blamed the Palestinian intifada for his unit’s insufficient training. “For the last six years we were engaged in stupid policing missions in the West Bank,” he said. “Checkpoints, hunting stone-throwing Palestinian children, that kind of stuff. The result was that we were not ready to confront real fighters like Hezbollah.” |
Ah gee, the poor IOF grew weak terrorizing pregnant women and kids with slingshots.
| Quote: | “I noticed behaviour I’d never heard of in the Israeli army,” Kima said last week on Israeli television. “In my training I got used to the idea that the commander shouts ‘Advance!’ and is the first to face the enemy. Here my battalion commander was in the back of the group and the brigade commander didn’t even cross the border into Lebanon.”
As the fighting dragged on, some veteran officers lost patience with what they saw as the inexperience of the chief of staff and defence minister. “What are you doing in Lebanon, for God’s sake?’ the former defence minister, General Shaul Mofaz, asked Olmert. “Why did you go into Bint Jbeil? It was a trap set by Hezbollah.”
Mofaz proposed an old-fashioned IDF assault plan to launch a blitzkrieg against Hezbollah, reach the strategically important Litani river in 48 hours and then demolish Hezbollah in six days.
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Say, enough with the nazi comparisons already!
Humbling of the supertroops shatters Israeli army morale
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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I couldn't resist this one:
| Quote: | If the fierce thicket of the Iraqi resistance stopped the Bush war spreading to Syria then the extraordinary Hizbullah victory has surely made the world think again about an attack on Iran. But the main - and maybe the most welcome - shift in the 40-year-old paradigm of the Israeli-Arab conflict is the puncturing of the belief in a permanent and unchallengeable Israeli military superiority over its neighbours and the hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders - from the sleek Shimon Peres through the roughhouse of Binyamin Netanyahu to the stumbling Mr Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert.
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George Galloway
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"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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sparqui
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="al-Qa'bong"]I couldn't resist this one:
| Quote: | ...to the stumbling Mr Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert.
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Maestro
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| Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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From 'the war nerd':
| Quote: | | Once they'd provoked the massive attack they hoped for, Hezbollah assumed the defensive, |
Given the Hezbollah leadership has said they wouldn't have taken the action they did if they had known what the Israeli reaction would be, at least on this point the war nerd is totally wrong.
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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Julia Boutros launches new single for martyrs
| Quote: | The single aims at helping the families of all Lebanese martyrs who perished during the latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon, said a spokesman...
..."We have faith in your sacrifices, your endurance, and the victory of our resistance in the face of the Israeli enemy, and specifically in the heroes who gave their blood and soul for us to keep our head high and proud, unified for our cherished Lebanon, which will remain a symbol of resistance against injustice and conspiracies against the Arab people," said Julia.
"It is with this faith and for the sake of the sacrifices embodied by our resistance heroes and all those who did not relinquish throughout the country and with all loyalty that we, all Arabs, must greatly support the families of all those martyrs and heroes, to our utmost capabilities."
Boutros is no new comer to noble causes for her beloved country; as such, she decided to use what she does best: create an artistic fundraising project, the spokesman added.
"The idea behind the project was inspired by the words of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, which I listened to as he replied to a letter he had received from the resistance fighters, words which touched us all. Consequently, I asked the great poet Ghassan Matar, to rewrite the letter in a poem I could sing. In just a few days, the song was ready thanks to the efforts of composer Ziad Boutros, music arranger Michel Fadel and my team," added Julia.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | While IDF officials confidently and publicly announced success in their offensive, their commanders recommended that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approve increased air sorties against potential Hezbollah caches in marginal target areas at the end of the first week of the bombing. Olmert approved these attacks, while knowing that in making such a request his senior officers had all but admitted that their initial assessment of the damage inflicted on Hezbollah was exaggerated.
Qana was the result of Olmert's agreement to "stretch the target envelope". One US military expert who monitored the conflict closely had this to say of the Qana bombing: "This isn't really that complicated. After the failure of the initial campaign, IAF planning officers went back through their target folders to see if they had missed anything. When they decided they hadn't, someone probably stood up and went into the other room and returned with a set of new envelopes of targets in densely populated areas and said, 'Hey, what about these target envelopes?' And so they did it." That is, the bombing of targets "close in" to southern Lebanon population areas was the result of Israel's failure in the war - not its success. |
HOW HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED ISRAEL
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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HOW HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED ISRAEL
PART 3: The political war
| Quote: | | Open support for Hezbollah across the Arab world (including, strangely, portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah carried in the midst of Christian celebrations) has put those Arab rulers closest to the United States on notice: a further erosion in their status could loosen their hold on their own nations. It seems likely that as a result, Mubarak and the two Abdullahs are very unlikely to support any US program calling for economic, political or military pressures on Iran. A future war - perhaps a US military campaign against Iran's nuclear sites - might not unseat the government in Tehran, but it could well unseat the governments of Egypt, Jordan and perhaps Saudi Arabia. |
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know if these Iraqis have anything to do with Hizbollah, but their tactics are somewhat similar.
Gunmen Infiltrated Secured Iraqi Site, Killing 5 Americans
| Quote: | Iraqi guards at checkpoints waved them through Saturday afternoon because the men wore what appeared to be legitimate U.S. military uniforms and badges, and drove cars commonly used by foreigners, the provincial governor said.
Once inside, however, the men unleashed one of the deadliest and most brazen attacks on U.S. forces in a secure area. Five American service members were killed in a hail of grenades and gunfire in a breach of security that Iraqi officials called unprecedented.
The attack, which lasted roughly 20 minutes, came on a day when the United States lost at least 20 other troops, including a dozen in a helicopter crash, making it the third most lethal day for American forces in Iraq.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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The CBC has finally heard of the attack.
| Quote: | | The incident occurred Jan. 20 at the governor's office in the Shia city of Karbala, about 80 kilometres south of Baghdad, according to the AP report, which was confirmed late Friday by the U.S. military. |
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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Warfare is becoming a wee bit more symmetrical between the IOF and Hezbollah:
| Quote: | The leader of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has said that his organisation launched an Iranian-built drone that was shot down in Israeli airspace last week.
"A sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft was sent from Lebanese territory ... and travelled hundreds of kilometres over the sea before crossing enemy lines and into occupied Palestine," Hassan Nasrallah said on television on Thursday.
He said the drone had overflown sensitive sites in Israel.
"Possession of such an aerial capacity is a first in the history of any resistance movement in Lebanon and the region," he said.
"It's not the first time [that a drone was sent] and it will not be the last. We can reach all the zones" of Israel, said Nasrallah, referring to a less sophisticated drone sent by Hezbollah during Lebanon's 2006 conflict with Israel.
He said the drone was "Iranian built and assembled in Lebanon", and was refered to as "Ayoub".
Netanyahu statement
Nasrallah's announcement came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of launching the previously unidentified drone.
"We are acting with determination to protect our borders... as we prevented last weekend an attempt by Hezbollah," Netanyahu office quoted him as saying. "We shall continue to act aggressively against all threats."
Nasrallah echoed the Israeli prime minister's sentiment.
"Israel is breaking the law and invading our space all the time. They should get used to us invading their space," he said in his televised speech.
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I bet Iran used the US drone they shot down as the template for this one.
Drone downed by Israel 'sent by Hezbollah'
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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al-Qa'bong
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| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 11:01 pm Post subject: |
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Hezbollah's having fun with this:
| Quote: | The Head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim stressed that "the penetrating of a drone to the Occupied Palestinian airspace reflected a clear fact: all claims that the "Israeli" army is invincible and that it is the strongest army in the region proved to be merely harbingers far from reality."
In a speech during the Cultural Forum Week, Hakim confirmed "the side that is not able to detect a slow drone can't definitely discover a real aircraft or a missile."
"Such a gap was evident in the structure of the "Israeli" Army and it demonstrated that this army is not the strongest in the region," he added.
In parallel, al-Hakim highlighted that " as it did in 2006 July war, the Islamic Resistance taught "Israel" a clear lesson."
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Sayyed al-Hakim: Drone in "Israeli" Airspace Exposed Its Superiority Claims
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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