Comments on: It all depends on how you define victory

By: J

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 22:01:23 +0000

Don Quixote,

Love the handle.

I have no answers. It seems to me that the current course can’t end well for Israel. Maybe that’s where my thinking is flawed. I want resolution, and maybe there can’t be any. At any rate, I’ve never lived in Israel or Lebanon, so my opinion is based purely on propaganda.

Personally, I think the price paid by the Lebonese, and certainly the Hezbollah, wasn’t nearly high enough. They’ll do it again. They’ll do it again soon. I’m for putting the proverbial fear of God in those people, or in placating them, but certainly not in provoking them.

By: Don Quixote

Don Quixote — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 23:33:32 +0000

J — Israel would welcome a non-military solution that allowed both sides to survive. It’s Israel’s enemies who are outspoken in their determination to drive Israel into the sea. Shouldn’t anyone who seriously wants a solution other than Israel’s total destruction support any efforts, including military ones, to persuade Israel’s foes to agree to a peace that will allow Israel to continue to exist? Personally, I don’t believe those foes will be persuaded by anything short of extreme military force, so extreme military force is the only possible way to achieve a peace in which both sides continue to exist. Or, we can just give up and let Israel’s foes destroy her. Which would you personally choose, or what other option do you suggest?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:32:36 +0000

If Israel doesn’t do anything after this ’skirmish’ then it won’t be a skirmish anymore.

By: jg

jg — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:45:46 +0000

My feeling remains that this is a skirmish between Iran and the West, or Israel, in the Middle East. Iran challenges the West in Iraq as well, in what is more than a skirmish.

One doesn’t ‘win’ skirmishes. It’s what follows that is significant.
As for that chimera of ‘world public opinion,’ Israel must see their military undertaking against terrorism as a matter of national survival. The rest of the world has no armies in that fight.

Iran and the US do.

By: isirota1965

isirota1965 — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 17:01:35 +0000

Respectfully, I believe that Israel unfortunately did not win this conflict. Clearly, it did not “lose” it either, at least not in the conventional military sense, but it had two prime goals when the war began. Those were to liberate the two kidnapped soldiers and to halt the firing of rockets into Northern Israel. It accomplished neither of these two goals. In fact, after five weeks, Hezbollah was still firing rockets into Israel at a rate that shocked most military experts.

Now, we have a situation which is exactly what I feared would occur. Hezbollah is already rapidly restocking, and when the IDF goes in to try to do something about it, it is roundly condemned.

Arguably, Israel is WORSE off now than it was before July 12…………….

By: mamapajamas

mamapajamas — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 02:08:44 +0000

I must admit that’s a hard choice, Ymars!

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:28:11 +0000

Isn’t terroist propaganda apparatuses so useful and versatile? If you had a choice between having an air force like Israel’s or Hizbollah’s propaganda apparatus, which would you choose?

By: mamapajamas

mamapajamas — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 22:46:16 +0000

J–“If all Israel needed to do was survive, then why unleash what it appears, at least to me, such pointless carnage?”

And that is the entire crux of the matter of the Green Helmet pictures that the entire blogosphere is up in arms about… the appearance of pointless carnage.

Israel went to a great deal of trouble to fly over and drop leaflets warning the Lebonese civilians to evacuate to the north before they started their attacks. The fact that there were so many left in southern Lebanon, staying inside buildings that were targeted by Israel as missile launch sites is suspicious. WHY were they there, supposedly sheltering in buildings that had rocket launchers? It appears to me that they might well have been hostages of Hisbollah, set up to be killed by the Israelis in order to create a public outcry.

The problem with that little act is that the Hezbos have been caught manipulating photos, staging scenes for the news photographers, and other tricks (such as possibly transporting a refrigerated truck full of bodies from a morgue in Tyre to Qana to make the body count look worse than it actually was, but this story hasn’t been substantiated yet).

The news media has gone into “circle the wagons” mode and are trying to gab their way out of this one. But it’s going to get worse and worse. The BBC and the AP are in serious trouble here, possibly losing their credibility once and for all. The infamous “Green Helmet” was filmed by a German news team directing the layout of various scenes for the photographers to shoot.

For a complete picture of what’s going on, check out this European site, EUReferendum

Be forewarned that on this conversation thread alone, there are 41 pages of comments, mostly from Europeans.

This story is NOT going to go away.

By: mamapajamas

mamapajamas — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 19:19:17 +0000

Golf War? Hmmmm… well, we could pit Tiger Woods against the current Islamic champion… if there is one.

Could be a nice, neat war where no one gets hurt :).

By: Mrs. Happy Housewife

Mrs. Happy Housewife — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 17:27:11 +0000

Gulf, not Golf. That would be interesting, though.