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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon |
| 2006-07-19 |
| Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire in the fighting that has killed more than 260 people and displaced 500,000. The military said early Wednesday it sent some troops into southern Lebanon in search of tunnels and weapons. Despite the diplomatic activity, Israel is in no hurry to end its offensive, which it sees as a unique opportunity to crush Hezbollah. The Islamic militants appear to have steadily built up their military strength after Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000. Israeli warplanes struck an army base outside Beirut and other areas in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 27 people, and Hezbollah rockets battered Israeli towns, killing one Israeli. Five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the east and south of the capital. At daybreak Wednesday, a small number of Israeli troops were operating just across the border inside southern Lebanon, looking for tunnels and weapons, the Israeli military said without providing any more details. The incursion came a day after Israel indicated that it might send large numbers of ground troops into the southern Lebanon, but Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman denied Wednesday's operation was part of any such operation. "What is going on at the moment is a number of Israeli ground troops very near to the border on the Lebanese side, trying to destroy some Hezbollah outposts," he told CNN. "This is an operation which is very measured, very local," he said. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon." More |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #39 hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of the capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack. The Israeli's dodged a bomb. They need to confine strikes to the Hizballah and Shiite areas (raize it for all I care) and work out agreements w/ the Christians, Druze, and Sunnis that there will be no Hizb, Iranians or their weapons allowed in those areas. For an understanding that their will be no strikes in those areas, the Israelis receive assurances that any suspicious activity will be dealt with. The last thing the Israelis need is to have this turn into a Israel vs. Lebanon war. Apologize, offer cooperation to void such mistakes and offer compensation for the drilling truck and any collateral damage. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-07-19 19:29 |
| #38 You can also think of this war as an experiment. Can we convince Muslims to abandon Jihad (at least for a time) by hitting them hard enough? Or is the Shiva option is the only route to our own survival? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-07-19 17:06 |
| #37 Patriot: And we've not had a hostile Japanese round fired at us in over 60 years, probably never will again. I find Narita International very civilized. I smile when I see the words "Make in Japan." I enjoy Sushi now and then, and I'd shoot anyone who tries to touch my Nikon digital. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-19 16:53 |
| #36 Actually, the fire-bombing of Tokyo on the night of Mar 9-10 killed and injured more people than either of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and more than any single raid on any German city. A total of 334 B-29s dropped more than 2000 tons of incindiary bombs, destroyed almost 16 sqare miles of the city, and left 100,000 dead and almost a million injured. Source. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-07-19 16:46 |
| #35 To put it differently. If you know your life depends on the outcome of a game of chess, you play a careful game of positional chess. If youre playing for fun, you can send all your pieces to try to take the king immediately. Israel knows how much is at stake. Their game is cautious. They will be happy if they can knock off a few pawns, and open up some lines of future attack. Some folks here will be screaming that theyve left their enemies rooks and bishops alive. Note - positional chess is historically NOT the American way of war. It sure changes things when you have a GDP equal to a forth or more of the worlds total economy. Israel isnt in that position, and never will be. Even the US is moving away from that position. Positional chess is our destiny. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-07-19 16:26 |
| #34 Sherman said what he said. Of course he was justifying the large scale destruction of property. Not deliberate killing of civilians. AFAIK, the Army of the Tennessee, under Sherman, was no less respectful of civilian life than any other civil war army - IE not perfect, but certainly respecting the distinction between soldiers and civilians. And Sherman also advocated a "hard war" in the belief that victory could be achieved soon - he advocated a "soft peace". Clearly Sherman understood that tactics needed to be fitted to political realities. The reality is that Israel is a nation of 5 million or so people. It CANNOT occupy populated portions of the arab middle east. It is dependent on foreign trade, and, (to a much lesser extent) on outside support. It CANNOT commit largescale destruction of civilian populations, even were it willing to. These constraints are reality. AFAICT Israels goals in the current war is to weaken Hezbollah, by destroying a large portion of its missile supply and other weapons, of its leadership and financial and organizational assets, and some portion of its personnel. All of these of course Hezb can, in theory, make good over time. However in the meanwhile Hezb will have lost both prestige and material power, weakening it in the byzantine political struggle in Lebanon. Further, Israel will have shown that Syria and Iran are unable to protect their protege, thereby weakening the prestige of Syria and Iran in the region. Ideally this might lead to regime change in one or both of those countries- but even if it does not, it shifts the political and diplomatic balance in the region. KSA, others, are more likely to look to the strong horse, esp when said horse has weakened the power they most fear. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-07-19 16:21 |
| #33 kelly: Alas poor Adolph blew his brains out and Germany surrendered too soon. There's a key distinction to be made here. Germany "surrendered" when it was overrun. The Japanese surrendered before the home islands were invaded, let alone overrun. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-07-19 16:11 |
| #32 "How many atomic bombs did the Germans get dropped on them?" It was supposed to be a simultaneous nuclear strike on both Japan and Germany Alas poor Adolph blew his brains out and Germany surrendered too soon. |
| Posted by: kelly 2006-07-19 15:26 |
| #31 Phil_b, I strongly agree with your mother's "best alternative" view. You have to move based on the facts and alternatives at hand. The situation is the same in Iraq. Going in and taking down Saddam was, IMO, the best alternative that we faced at the time. Will our efforts succeed? Who knows! one scenario is that once we leave the Shiites and the Sunnis will likely slide into a civil war that will be extremely bloody. Pundits will say our effort was a total failure. But perhaps they will kill one another to an extent that they become exhausted and return to the roots of democracy that we provided them. We went through a civil war that killed over half a million soldiers and came out on the other side a stronger nation than when we went in. Perhaps they need the heat of that same crucible. Perhaps the Shiite Lebanese need it too. You can only play what if for so long when your people are being killed by someone. Your reaction may not be perfect, but it is the one you choose. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2006-07-19 14:00 |
| #30 The Jew haters at CNN just reported the EXACT town where the Israeli SF entered. There is big difference between reporting along a tank crew and pin pointing locations of SF. CNN called IDF to confirm, CNN said the IDF denied it but CNN reported that, even though IDF denied it, I saw ISF being dropped into this town. I won't repeat the town here for obvious reasons. I don't why Israel won't kick out CNN. As student of the Bible, I don't want to use the words that I want use against CNN. I will say that, I have flames coming out of my ears. Man!! I can't believe it. The truth is, I do believe it. |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2006-07-19 13:37 |
| #29 Dresden bombing death estimates vary wildly. From Wikipedia: Civilian death estimates vary wildly largely as a result of propaganda figures which received widespread publicity at the time, however the most recently available evidence from Friedrich Reichart of Dresden City Museum points to 25,000 deaths, which is less than the number that died in Hamburg, but Dresden was a smaller city. Numbers between 25,000 — 140,000 have been used in official statistics with the communist authorities of Dresden increasing their estimates across time; estimates in Nazi Germany by the Ministry of Propaganda varied between 350,000 and 400,000. At that time, Dresden's population was 600,000, but up to 200,000 refugees were living in cramped apartments and passing through Dresden as the Russians were now only fifty miles away. The entire inner city (15 square kilometres) was utterly devastated, and other quarters were damaged to some degree, the many villa quarters, however, on average much less than others. Many of the higher estimates are based on a fake TB47 report (which has been visibly altered by the simple expedient of adding a zero to the end of the totals). However the West German Federal Archive in Koblenz discovered a genuine copy of TB47. The official "Final Report and Situation (TB47)" produced by Reich Commander of the Order Police a month after the bombings. "TB47" is probably a reasonable guide to the order of casualty numbers. It states definite figures of between 18,000 and 22,000 with estimates of final numbers of 25,000 and includes the interesting sentence "Since rumours far exceed the reality, open use can be made of the actual figures." The bombing of Hamburg likely killed more people: On the night of July 27, shortly before midnight, 739 aircraft attacked Hamburg. A number of factors combined to give the enormous destruction that followed; the unusually dry and warm weather, the concentration of the bombing in one area and that the city's firefighters were unable to reach the initial fires - the high explosive "Cookies" used in the early part of the raid had prevented them getting into the center of the city from the periphery where they were working on the results of the 24th. The bombings culminated in the spawning of the so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm). Quite literally a tornado of fire, this phenomenon created a huge outdoor blast furnace, containing winds of up to 240 km/h (150 mph) and reaching temperatures of 800°C (1,500°F). It caused asphalt on the streets to burst into flame, cooked people to death in air-raid shelters, sucked pedestrians off the sidewalks like leaves into a vacuum cleaner and incinerated some eight square miles (21 km²) of the city. Most of the casualties (40,000) caused by Operation Gomorrah happened on this single night. |
| Posted by: Steve 2006-07-19 12:18 |
| #28 Anon4021, well said. "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say give them all they want." "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." ---William Tecumseh Sherman |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-07-19 12:01 |
| #27 #26, A more accurate question would be how many major cities were decimated. We produced nearly the same amount of destruction when firebombing Dresden. I think we also produced more IMMEDIATE kills in Dresden than in either of the Nuked japanese cities. You win a war by making your enemy incapable or unwilling to wage war. |
| Posted by: Anon4021 2006-07-19 11:41 |
| #26 #21 ZF: How many atomic bombs did the Germans get dropped on them? |
| Posted by: DoDo 2006-07-19 11:12 |
| #25 Agree re: Islamic fanatics -- "You cannot reason with them, you cannot bargain with them, you cannot give them the slightest bit of compassion or they mistake it for weakness." In general, the Arab population will go a long with the perceived "winner" -- so it's important to clear the nest and target the important players--the ones who are organizers, leaders. But I don't see this ending any time soon. As I've said before, the motivation on the part of Islamics has a lot more to do with complex psychosexual issues, identity, developmental gaps, and issues of dysfunctional culture and family/community relationships, than it does with religion or politics. These guys each have a personal score to settle and have selected a scapegoat (the Jews/ the West) because, for various reasons, they cannot confront, and their society does not allow them to confront, the real enemy, nor does their society allow them to build in a direction away from the consequence of the negative influences that have been damaging to them. So all they're left with is fighting as an end-all "remedy" to their "problems." And, of course, there are others (the leaders, organizers) who, in addition to having their own driving issues, play on those same drives in the other young men, for reasons of personal enrichment and/or social recognition/power. I love the US because there are actual avenues of redress which are supported by society, even for those who have endured the worst abuse, and there is opportunity to build in a prosocial way, in a different direction, so as to create a new future at the individual level. Compared to Arab fatalism, we have an almost polar-opposite view on life, and we'd all really like these guys to quit it so we can get on with things. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2006-07-19 10:33 |
| #24 Steve - I made almost exactly the same comment in another thread :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-19 10:24 |
| #23 ZF- You just taught me something. I was basing my asssessment on the killed vs surrendered ratio on the islands like Okinawa, where I think surrenders were on the order of 1% and extrapolating. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 10:14 |
| #22 Israeli bombers, which had been focusing on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, also hit a Christian suburb on the eastern side of the capital for the first time. The target was a truck-mounted machine that was used to drill for water but could have been mistaken for a missile launcher. The vehicle was destroyed, but nobody was hurt in that attack. A truck-mounted well drilling rig, with the drill folded down over the cab for transport, would look exactly like a missile launcher from a distance. I'd have hit it myself. |
| Posted by: Steve 2006-07-19 10:10 |
| #21 Glenmore: NS - you may well be right that killing them ALL now is not as bad as what would otherwise happen later (nuke Japan vs. invade.) But that's not going to happen. And it would be more like Japan than Germany - Germans were not fighting for a centuries-old, ingrained-from-birth religion like the Japanese. And of course Islam is even worse. I'm afraid you have been misled about the fighting spirit of the Japanese. The Japanese lost a third of the dead suffered by the Germans during WWII. The Germans fought until their capital was overrun. The Japanese gave up well short of that. The Germans fought for four years against 80% of the US effort (20% was devoted to fighting the Japanese, against MacArthur's strenuous objections) and 100% of the British and Soviet efforts. The Japanese surrendered 3 months after 100% of the US effort was devoted to crushing them. The Germans lost four times the number of civilian deaths as the Japanese to Allied bombings. In terms of fighting spirit, the Germans beat the Japanese hands down - the numbers don't lie. Sure, the Japanese were Shintoists, but this did not make them fearless - they were certainly much more concerned about annihilation than the Germans who lost 10% of their population during WWII, as compared to only 2.5% of the Japanese population. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-07-19 09:30 |
| #20 To get an idea of why Lebanon is where it is today read this thread. Skip to the third post and start reading about Syria's slaughter of many thousands of Lebanese. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-07-19 09:26 |
| #19 We keep hearing the same argument for the Iraqi terrorists and the Taliban. The point is, both are weakening and only focused on a local struggle rather than a regional/global one. Tribal leaders in Afganistan and Pakland are asking the Americans to take prisoners instead of using smart bombs, since so many young men aren't returning home. Iraqi terrorists are scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel. Young arabs are wearning copies of American uniforms and acknowledge our military power. You don't have to kill everyone, just the fanatics and enough of the people that are swayed by them that the rest stay home and the people that oppose the fanatics start moving against them. A generation of young arab men are being wiped out. It is nessisary to clean out the death cult that their culture is obsessed with and start change. A large butcher's bill will have to be paid for the sins of the arab fathers. Change is now happening. We can't back off simply because we are weasy about the large death toll. It has to happen, or they will kill us. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-07-19 09:07 |
| #18 Thinemp Whimble2412 - No doubt a mobile Baby Milk Factory. |
| Posted by: Elmoluth Chutch7372 2006-07-19 08:19 |
| #17 They are a death cult Glenmore, of course they will flock to whoever will get them killed the fastest. You cannot reason with them, you cannot bargain with them, you cannot give them the slightest bit of compassion or they mistake it for weakness and begin to foam at the mouth. All you can do with zealots is kill them, and keep killing them until you have rooted out the nest. Look at Afghanastan, we are annihilating the Taliwhackers left and right, only now is their appeal waning. Why? Because nobody wants to play for a losing team. |
| Posted by: Flolunter Clemp1012 2006-07-19 08:15 |
| #16 Debka: Lebanese sources report first Israeli air strike in central BeirutÂ’s Ashrafiya district against a suspected heavy missile truck. They claim it was a municipal vehicle for clearing sewers The Yahoo news story on this strike has someone claiming the truck carried a drill for water. I think the vehicle was a fluffy bunny rescue van. Others think it was yellow duckie transport. Nobody really knows for sure. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-07-19 08:13 |
| #15 I'd agree you're more realistic, Glenmore but I'm correct. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-19 08:10 |
| #14 Phil b I concur. From the beginning the path taken may have been the best available. My real point is - what is the NEXT step? I don't believe a 'final solution' is it. And THIS phase won't last too much longer (how long can she wash her hair.) I hope people smarter than I (and maybe Kofi too) are gaming some longer-term political approaches. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 08:09 |
| #13 2b - I am not disagreeing at all IN PRINCIPLE. Just concerned it may not be the most pragmatic path. Adressing your stalker analogy - I'd be cautious trying to kill that stalker if it was clear he wanted me to try. Not saying I wouldn't do it, just that I would be real concerned about WHY he wanted me to try. I'm thinking along the lines of Custer and Little Big Horn here. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 08:04 |
| #12 Glenmore, my mother used to tell me things are not good or bad. They are just better or worse than the alternatives. And, democracy's great strength is that they try stuff and then discard what doesn't work (sure the process is often slow and painful). Israel is trying the military route, because there isn't a better option on offer. Maybe it will work, maybe it will work for a while or maybe it won't work at all. We shall see. Maybe next year or the year after there will be a better alternative, but right now they are doing the best thing possible - taking down as much of Hezbollah as they can until the people who matter say enough. BTW, I hear Condi will be washing her hair for the next few days, so they still have time. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-07-19 08:01 |
| #11 NS - you may well be right that killing them ALL now is not as bad as what would otherwise happen later (nuke Japan vs. invade.) But that's not going to happen. And it would be more like Japan than Germany - Germans were not fighting for a centuries-old, ingrained-from-birth religion like the Japanese. And of course Islam is even worse. And 'the world' is not ready to really face the problem yet - by the time they are it will, as you point out, be a lot worse. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 07:58 |
| #10 wow, that is such a stretch for an analogy. A head butt for a taunt v/s rocket launches and kidnappings. Now perhaps if you had said that someone who is being stalked by someone who wants to rape and killt them should should be at least a little worrried about doing that which your enemy expects and even incites you to do it makes a bit more sense, though not in the same context. Besides Gilmore, I bet that guy won't be taunting him anymore, now will he? And I suspect that in the context of survival, that's a result that Israel can live with. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-07-19 07:56 |
| #9 Killing every Hesb is OK with me. Even if there is a lot of collateral damage. It's actually a lot nicer than what's going to happen later if we don't take care of this problem now. And we don't need to kill every one. We didn't kill every Nazi or every Japanese Emperor worshipper. We just need to kill so many that the rest say "I'd rather change my mind and live than keep the faith and die." If it ends up meaning we do kill them all, it was by their own choice. They started this war and the question is who will finish it. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-19 07:47 |
| #8 Israel's response to the HezbAllah incursions, kidnappings, and rocket attacks is totally understandable. And predictable. And quite possibly wrong. One should be at least a little worrried about doing that which your enemy expects and even incites you to do (like head butting in response to a taunt in a World Cup game.) The problem is that Israel cannot kill ALL of HezbAllah. Nor 'convert' them to peaceful practices. Nor are they likely to seriously impact Hezb'Allah's long-term weapons supply. What they may be doing is creating more future HezbAllah - people who might have been merely passive supporters becoming dedicated after having their kin killed and homes blown up. And reducing support within the rest of the Lebanese community. Sure, the Hezb are embedded among them, and sure, the non-Hezb aren't doing anything about it, but I figure it's like that psychological hostage syndrome, where they bond with their captors and reject their rescuers (probably out of some kind of guilt about not fighting their captors themselves.) Anyway, it strikes me as what the Israelis are facing in Lebanon. So what IS the answer? I don't know. Killing everyone won't work (unacceptable to the civilized world.) Too late to just sit still and talk, but that wasn't likely to do any good either. Nuking Iran wouldn't be acceptable (until after Iran nukes them, which would be too late.) In the mid-term the approach taken seems likely to return to nearly the previous condition, with more but weaker enemies. Is there a way to use the weakened status of those enemies to 'convert' (revert) them? That's a political task, not a military one. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 07:35 |
| #7 Municipal strength snakes. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-19 07:34 |
| #6 Debka: Lebanese sources report first Israeli air strike in central BeirutÂ’s Ashrafiya district against a suspected heavy missile truck. They claim it was a municipal vehicle for clearing sewers. I didn't know they used heavy missiles to clean their sewers! :-) |
| Posted by: gorb 2006-07-19 07:33 |
| #5 The Islamic militants appear to have steadily built up their military strength after Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000. Gosh, AP clearly hires their reporters for raw intelligence -- this one is really, really smart! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-07-19 06:15 |
| #4 JPost: IDF, Hizbullah exchanging fire on northern border IDF forces and Hizbullah were entangled in a heavy exchange of fire Wednesday afternoon on the northern border. Debka reports reinforcements streaming across the border. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-07-19 06:06 |
| #3 The Israelis should take their time and be extra careful about civilian casualties. It would only take one major error to bring this to a premature end. Any ceasefire deal will have the release of the captured soldiers on the first line and the Hezzies aren't going to do that in a hurry, so there's plenty of time. |
| Posted by: Apostate 2006-07-19 06:03 |
| #2 They'd have to be. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2006-07-19 05:34 |
| #1 I think the Israelis are a little surprised no one who matters is calling for them to stop. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-07-19 04:05 |