Article

2006-08-13 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hezbollah Shoots Down Israeli Helicopter

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Posted by Steve White 2006-08-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11132 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Shot their wad did they?

I'm hearing this was a SAM not an anti-tank missile.

Posted by Captain America 2006-08-13 01:02|| 2006-08-13 01:02|| Front Page Top

#2 What is happening in south Lebanon? Iranian consultants set up defense-in-depth zones along the frontier with Israel. Hizbollah commanders allowed an advance of most of Israeli columns, then surprised the IDF from all sides. The IDF learned quickly and countered each ambush. However, "depth" forces were often programed to hide in tunnels until the IDF could be caught off guard. Attacks come at any time. In all other conflicts with Arab aggressors, Israeli forces knew enemy locations.

Iran took away effective blitz capacity from the IDF. However, the 60 plus IDF casualties attests to the lack of the storied "pitched battles," with skilled front-line troops. Whether it is on the ground or with missiles, Hizbollah tactics are terroristic.

In Vietnam, US forces countered tunnel war by using napalm, and stressful interrogation of captives. If the IAF/IDF used Napalm to take out missile launchers, in order to protect the civilians that Hizbollah' murderers are targeting, then the Eurabian atrocity propaganda mill would grind.

Iran is directing the war, and they are using effective tactics. So effective, that some Israelis are preparing to emigrate, which would be catastrophic for that country. Ergo: saving Israel requires Strategic means against the real enemy.

Most rants about use of nuclear weapons against Iran, are little more than simplistic ventings of anger. However, once you realize that, post ceasefire Israel will face a modern missile threat in huge numbers and with a reach throughout the entire country, in order for Israel to survive, that fait accompli would have to be prevented now. And given the President's link of this enemy with WW2 "fascism," and the new recognition of the inherent belligerence of Muslims, green light thinking could cause exercise of the "Sampson Option."

What I don't like to hear is the mentality: we don't do that. Tell that to the 200,000 Tokyo residents who were fried with Magnesium bombs in 1945. Then there was the 180,000 dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Can we take casualties? How about 19,400 dead in one day during the First Battle of the Somme? We are hardly natural born killers, but the President does not want to pass the Ahmadinejad problem onto the next generation. And the extinction of Israel is inevitable, if we don't act jointly against this genocidal enemy. We kill; they die.

Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-08-13 01:52|| 2006-08-13 01:52|| Front Page Top

#3 SS 3550: I've heard similar rumblings regarding emigration. Olmert has lost almost all credibility. Israel will need some very strong leadership to see itself through the terror blitz that is coming.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2006-08-13 02:24|| 2006-08-13 02:24|| Front Page Top

#4 Well said, SS3550. The Eurabian atrocity propaganda mill grinds away regardless, so I keep asking myself, "What does Israel have to lose?" US support? From what we've read across the board, they've had the greenest light possible.

I am convinced that the exact same question applies to the US, especially regards Iran... that the US is now viewed in exactly the same light as Israel. I believe that most of the West, in the deepest sense of pure hypocrisy and cowardice, would breathe a huge sigh of relief if we took out the Iranian regime. Sure, that same PR mill would grind away condemning us, but how is that any different from what is happening already? We are already deemed the real terrorists by the moonbats and muzzbats of the planet. Fuck 'em.

In the end, it will be the US vs Iran that will decide whether the 60 year old series of murderous half-measures will finally be resolved. Either we take Iran down, or the M.E. "game" shifts into a new, deadlier, gear for the next round. And the threat will not be limited to Israel.

Kill the Iranian regime, George. This will be the most important challenge of your tenure - and that's saying a lot, given what you've already done. Find a way through the domestic political maze - the only one that actually matters.

Do it. Do it because it must be done to stop regional hegemony falling to the insane theocracy of Iran. Do it for the ungrateful assholes of Europe who will be under the Iranian missile threat - and will hate us for saving their sorry asses, yet again. Do it for Israel. Do it for us. Please.

Posted by flyover 2006-08-13 04:04|| 2006-08-13 04:04|| Front Page Top

#5 Don't forget we now fighting "Islamofascism" and not "hijackers of Islam." Don't forget the Bush of the National Cathedral Speech day:

National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the
Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001

Washington National Cathedral
September 14, 2001

We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them.

On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes and bent steel.

Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning. They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced death and in their last moments called home to say, be brave and I love you.

They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers and prevented the murder of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States and died at their posts.

They are the names of rescuers -- the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We will linger over them and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.

To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone.

Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history, but our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.

War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder.

This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing.

Our purpose as a nation is firm, yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there's a searching and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, on Tuesday, a woman said, "I pray to God to give us a sign that he's still here."

Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing.

God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes are not always our own, yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral are known and heard and understood.

There are prayers that help us last through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey, and there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own.

This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end, and the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.

It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves.

This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.

We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety.

A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burned victims. In these acts and many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another and in an abiding love for our country.

Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called, "the warm courage of national unity." This is a unity of every faith and every background. This has joined together political parties and both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils and American flags, which are displayed in pride and waved in defiance. Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.

America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time.

On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.

As we've been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God's love.

May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.

God bless America.
---------------------------
The Middle East Democratic Initiative didn't "rid the world of evil." That was not the only option. As for the "hour of our choosing": September could be one of the greatest months in US history. A lot depends on what we hear from Ahmadinejad on "60 Minutes" tonight. If he even hints at a threat of the life of the President...

Posted by Snease Shaiting3550 2006-08-13 04:32|| 2006-08-13 04:32|| Front Page Top

#6 The Middle East Democratic Initiative didn't "rid the world of evil."

And evil is the true enemy to be recognized. We use different weapons to win this war.

Posted by Danielle 2006-08-13 08:27|| 2006-08-13 08:27|| Front Page Top

#7 A lot depends on what we hear from Ahmadinejad on "60 Minutes" tonight. If he even hints at a threat of the life of the President...

From what I've heard Ahmadinejad Interview is a complete nice guy propaganda ploy, and the general public will probably buy it. I hope others grab that video and interpose it with video of his real statements and his and Irans historical record.

Posted by Chump Speter6875 2006-08-13 08:56|| 2006-08-13 08:56|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm hearing this was a SAM not an anti-tank missile.
StrategyPage claims it was with an anti-tank guided missile. Another interesting tidbit is that 1/2 of the Israeli civilian deaths have been Arabs since they are concentrated in the north.

Posted by ed 2006-08-13 09:14|| 2006-08-13 09:14|| Front Page Top

#9 The 60-minutes idiot "journalists" will be completely duped by this guy. Guaranteed. Which is too bad and dangerous to the world (duh--but if felt like saying it).

About Israeli leadership. None of this would've happened if Netanyahu ("Bibi") was still in charge. The Arabs fear him because he is fierce and unrelenting--unlike Olmert--and they wouldn't dare pull this because he'd just flatten them. Anyway, everything he said would happen if Israel did this or that, is now happening. An iron rod is all the Muslims ever understand, and all they ever want is war, so the appropriateness of a "military attitude" and economic/social rewards for good behavior is about all you can hope for.

Posted by ex-lib 2006-08-13 09:16|| 2006-08-13 09:16|| Front Page Top

#10 I hope GWB is willing to completely annihilate his "popularity" and end this conflict before it heats up. If not will get to be a lot more complicated and the lines will be blurred--too much so for the American public to stand behind a decisive offensive. The rest of the Muslim world is watching to see which way this will go, and if Iran is able to gain victory in the Hezbo fight, the others will rally. For now, though, (and there's not much time left), the Arab states would rather NOT see Iran at the helm. But if it happens, it will be "inshallah."

Posted by ex-lib 2006-08-13 09:27|| 2006-08-13 09:27|| Front Page Top

#11 In the end, it will be the US vs Iran that will decide whether the 60 year old series of murderous half-measures will finally be resolved. Either we take Iran down, or the M.E. "game" shifts into a new, deadlier, gear for the next round. And the threat will not be limited to Israel.

Word, flyover. One way or the other, the Middle East will shift gears and either way, it will be into a meat-grinder mode. The only question is; "Who gets tossed into the hopper?" Islamists and their supportive minions or the remaining free world? The no-longer-functional kid glove must be replaced with a mailed fist.

This has nothing to do with whether or not that is what Arabs will "respect." It has everything to do with what will succeed against a culture so death-obsessed as to revel, even in its most bloody defeats. The Palestinian loons extolling how Hibollah's misguided rocket launches landed in their midst epitomizes this to perfection.

The now-glaring Iran-Syrian terrorist pipeline is one of the very few sweeping indictments of exactly how and why terrorism continues to thrive. If we are so stupid as to not seize this 24 carat golden opportunity to finally vanquish some major players while they are in the limelight, we are worse than fools.

To hell with world opinion. Over 90% of this planet's population will publically decry American "unilateralism" at the exact same time that they secretly sigh in relief after we, once again, peel the oppressor's monkey off of their back for the umpteenth thankless time.

We do not owe this immense favor to the world. We owe such survivalistic measures to ourselves.

Posted by Zenster 2006-08-13 16:51|| 2006-08-13 16:51|| Front Page Top

#12 Well said, Zenster.

America will be, as it has always been, criticized for saving the world.

A French moralistic of the 18th century said: "When you make a kindness, you create an ingrate".

Posted by leroidavid">leroidavid 2006-08-13 17:18|| 2006-08-13 17:18|| Front Page Top

#13 Ed

Turns out the Israelis are calling it a SAM, not antitank missile. An SA7 missile (ynet/link)

Posted by Captain America 2006-08-13 20:23|| 2006-08-13 20:23|| Front Page Top

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