Did Hizbollah really attack Israel?
This Associated Press article, and there are others like it, say that the Israeli soldiers were actually in Lebanese territory when they were abducted. I'm going to have to check into this some more.
There's an election coming up in America, so it's war season.
How many times have countries wanted to go to war, so they make up that they're being attacked or threatened and then they can get the war going? Let's see, there's the USS Maine, and the Gleiwitz Incident. The annexation of Hawaii. The threat to American medical students in Grenada. Let's not forget the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and now the fictional Weapons of Mass Destruction. How many can you count?
posted by M Dangermond at 11:09 AM
1 Comments:
Actually, it seems these little tit for tat exchanges, whether short fire fights or prisoner taking, has been quite common for quite a few years, with both sides, either Hezbollah or Israel, taking a pot shot or a prisoner with no resulting massive escalation occurring until recently. There's also a small strip of land on the border that both sides have claimed, but never, until recently, hotly contested, which furthers the confusion on who struck first. I think the whole "who struck first" contest of arguments to be less relevant than the fact that something big was bound to explode given the tension on both sides. I think Iran exploiting US weakness due to Iraq and Israel's leadership fooling itself "Bush style" that it can take down Hezbollah easily are both very viable theories.
I've heard all the various versions and stories of who did what first, mostly from correspondents in the region who speak the language(s), and the version I believe goes something like this --
Hezbollah, in initiating one of their regular but very small border skirmishes with the Israelis, might have strayed onto a piece of land that was some sort of unspoken "no-go" zone, and may actually have been surprised by the rapid escalation of the conflict by Israel. However, once the Israelis rapidly escalated the conflict, Hezbollah quickly decided to use it as an opportunity to "rally the troops" to show they could withstand the attack and keep going. They are terrorists and guerilla fighters, but they are not amateurs, and apparently they have gotten big points with the Shiite population especially for showing they could withstand such a huge Israeli assault, unlike previous conflicts.
But, who knows. Maybe the Israeli government decided they were going to move in on Lebanon in advance. We won't ever know, but even Israelis agree the current Israeli P.M., a civilian, is determined to show how tough he is. Maybe Iran, Hezbollah's backers, thought this was a great time to spark a big proxy fight against Israel. We won't know, Hezbollah is as secretive as the Israeli secret service. I think its just a horrible war with too many civilians on both sides getting pounded because the two warring sides are determined to show how tough they are.
Whatever the case these things are clear:
1) With theocratic Shiites being propped up in power by the U.S., and Hezbollah causing mischief and trouble for Israel, Iran is the clear strategic winner in this awful game; the losers are the civilians on both sides caught in the cross fire.
2) Even Republicans in Congress got a wake up JOLT when the Prime Minister of Iraq came to the D.C. for his photo op with Bush, and then started saying how much he supported Hezbollah, hence the Senate committee where Hillary put the bitch slap on Rumsfeld and even Republicans McCain and Graham making Rummy, Pace and Abazaid squirm like 3 eight year olds called into the principals office to explain the mess they made.
4) Bush's inattentiveness to the problem, and refusal to engage the situation, Rice's incompetance, the whole adminstration's lack of ... what the f*** are they doing? Pitiful.
5) An entire addtional brigade of U.S. soldiers being sent to Baghdad, just when the military said they were going to start drawing down, just in time to greet 100,000 militant marchers called by Sadr to wear martyr's garb and shout death to Israel, death to the U.S., and Rice says "Oh this is great. This is free speech being exercised." Check out McCain's comment on YouTube on "whack-a-mole;" US soldiers go to Bahgdad, militias go to another province. US soldiers go there, then the militias just keep moving and playing tag without end.
Anyway, its a big f**king mess. I tend to lean towards those that sympathise with Israel, but think that Israel's huge escalation of the war will be counterproductive and ultimately harmful to both Israeli interests, peace and security. For all in the region.
Isn't there some guy getting paid over $100,000 to be the "Head of the Department of Lessons Learned" in the White House? I would say send that guy to Israel to explain how the whole Iraq thing screwed the U.S. situation, but the guy is probably just some Republican party hack that got a job because he was some fund raiser's roommate...
These neocons have really screwed things up...
11:17 AM
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