Originally posted by intrepid
Could the Lebenese army contain Hez? Appearently not.
Since Hez is a political organization as much as it is military, and they do so much to maintain infrastructure, I think its impossible for the
Lebanese military to
not have Hez in it. I don't think that it means they control it, but the national govt there is in struggle with Hez for
political control, and for Hez to not take advantage of infiltrating or converting part of the standing army is ignoring a valuable asset. So I think
they are there, just because it is a typical thing for the opposition to do, no matter what country.
Could the average Achmed do anything without retaliation to him and his family by Hez? I seriously doubt it.
I doubt it too. Interestingly enough, Israel does have dissenters protesting inside Israel, which is something you wouldn't be able to find in
Lebanon, Syria, or Iran.
Could Israel have done things differently to handle this situation? DAMN STRAIGHT!
Sure they could have. There are always options. But it
depends on what the goal is. If their goal was to protract an unstable peace, they could have done nothing, or next to nothing. But I don't look at
this as it being
just Hez. Hez and Hammas acted in conjunction, and I believe Iran is pulling the strings. The pres of Iran wants Israel off
the map, and they heavily fund both groups. Plus this takes pressure off of Iran for its nuclear ambitions. Israel is striking Hez and Ham, but more
importantly, I think they see themselves as striking agents of Iran, which they, Hez and Ham, partly are, and therefore taking away military assets
from Iran.
I did a Mapquest search on Syria/Lebenon and there were unoccupied areas that could have been bombed, stopping those routes from rearming Hez. NOT
areas that were inhabitted.
The poblem with bombing unpopulated areas, is that destroying a road doesn't necessarily provide a choke point. If there are no natural or man made
obstacles, then you just drive around the crater. Blow up a road at a bridge or near buildings, it is much harder to move through. Not healthy for
the population, but for a military operation it is very practical.
Bombing the airport? Hell the Israeli airforce could knock out any Syrian aircraft that was trying to give aid to Hez.
If the goal is to stop material from coming in to Lebanon by air, this is the only way to do it without shooting down an airplane. No airport, no air
traffic. What if Syria packs a bunch of civilians on a cargo plane full of ammo? If Israel shoots it down, its looked at as a massacre. If they
don't, Hez has been resupplied. This way, Israel doesn't have to take such a politically dangerous risk.
So, Israel has killed infrastructure that the civillians could use to get the hell out of the Dodge, leaving them at the wiles of the competing sides.
I wonder WHY?
The popluation is moving out of the combat zone. There are 500,000 displaced, moving north, so they aren't
stuck in the combat zone per se,
though this is causing much concern for the looming humanitarian crisis that will inevitably occur from just dealing with such a mass of people. But
the majority of Hez will go with them. Hez just can't slug it out with Israel, especially without politically sensitive targets to tie Israels
hands, such as hiding amongst civilians. Before you say that it hasn't stopped Israel so far, to have dropped as much ordinance and have so few
civilian casualties is fairly remarkable. Also remember that the trend is to list all casualties as civilian. Its the trend in the ME, and also a
legitimate propiganda weapon for them to use. I've accepted that's what they do and see its value. I don't understand why others don't see it at
all. So most of Hez goes north, can't take their gear because Israel is watching from the skies, Israel goes in and desroys hardware left behind, or
better yet finds new hardware supplied by Syria and Iran.
Good topic.
