Middle East thread continued

[Edan]

A senior IAF officer told the Post Sunday afternoon that the air force was using bunker-buster bombs to strike at senior Hizbullah officials in hiding throughout Lebanon. According to the officer, several of the bunker hideouts were hidden under civilian parking lots.

link

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Sandman
A BBC news team travelling through southern Lebanon found a paper tissue factory that had been destroyed by the Israelis. A real military target, that.

It's hard to see what the Israelis are hoping to achieve with this, apart from inflicting Palestinian-style collective punishment on Lebanon. Let's face it, the non-Hezbollah Lebanese aren't willing or able to restart the civil war, and any realistic level of Israeli punishment beatings isn't going to change their minds.

Paper tissues are used by Hizbullah and other terrorists,
for example to clean their working place while working on bombs.

Therefore it was a direct strike at the terrorists
and severely hit their capabilities in workplace cleaning.

[Eli]

There werent that many infrastructure attacks. The vast majority of these attacks are on roads and bridges and such attacks have clear tactical purposes. No one wants the bad guys moving freely.

The attacks on the Beirut Airport and a few seaports are of dubious value though and IIRC even they werent really large scale. A few bombs dont ruin an air/seaport.

But there were few if any (at least deliberate) attacks on electricty, water or manufacturing infrastructure. It makes no sense for Israel to weaken the Lebanese government, beyond scaring them a bit with a few mostly symbolic attacks.

[Sandman]

What was the point of blowing up Beirut's lighthouse?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Sandman
A BBC news team travelling through southern Lebanon found a paper tissue factory that had been destroyed by the Israelis. A real military target, that.

It's hard to see what the Israelis are hoping to achieve with this, apart from inflicting Palestinian-style collective punishment on Lebanon. Let's face it, the non-Hezbollah Lebanese aren't willing or able to restart the civil war, and any realistic level of Israeli punishment beatings isn't going to change their minds.

Paper tissues are used by Hizbullah and other terrorists,
for example to wipe themselves.

Therefore it was a direct strike at the terrorists
and severely hit their capabilities in wiping themselves.

Undoubtedly, the resulting extremely annoying feeling
of not being clean will affect their ability
to wage ware against Israel.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Sandman
What was the point of blowing up Beirut's lighthouse?

Err, either there is no point and it was a stupid thing to do, or it was a strike at a relatively unimportant target designed to make the Lebanese government, Syria and the world to see that Israel is serious.

Btw, what's the point in lighthouses in the day and age of GPS?

[MRT144]

what is the point of GPS if you don't own transponder for it?

[Eli]

Small fishermen are probably the only ones who cannot afford GPS and I dont think they get far enough from the coast to actually need a huge lamp to guide them back. I could be wrong, of course.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Eli


Err, either there is no point and it was a stupid thing to do, or it was a strike at a relatively unimportant target designed to make the Lebanese government, Syria and the world to see that Israel is serious.

Btw, what's the point in lighthouses in the day and age of GPS?

And what's the result of all that point-making? That they fling missiles into Haifa? Some ****ing point. I bet Nasrallah almighty impressed now that you've managed to take out a lighthouse and a paper-tissue factory.

[Eli]

And what's the result of all that point-making? That they fling missiles into Haifa? Some ****ing point. I bet Nasrallah almighty impressed now that you've managed to take out a lighthouse and a paper-tissue factory.

Where did I say that the message was directed at Nasrallah? I specifically mentioned the Lebanese and Syrian governments. "Messaging" them does serve a purpose. It reminds them that they too have a role to play and that it would be best for them to start playing that role. Making a point to Nasrallah is, as you said, useless.

[lord of the mark]

Az, Eli, Siro.

My thoughts and prayers are with you and with all the other people of Israel, esp with the people of the north, and with Tzahal. I have only begun to hear of American Jewish mobilization, including a rally in NY, and an emergency fund for the needs of the people of northern Israel. I will be looking into what I can do.

[Winston]

lotm,

If you find a relief fund that you would be likely to support, could you post the info on how to donate here?

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Eli

And what's the result of all that point-making? That they fling missiles into Haifa? Some ****ing point. I bet Nasrallah almighty impressed now that you've managed to take out a lighthouse and a paper-tissue factory.

Where did I say that the message was directed at Nasrallah? I specifically mentioned the Lebanese and Syrian governments. "Messaging" them does serve a purpose. It reminds them that they too have a role to play and that it would be best for them to start playing that role. Making a point to Nasrallah is, as you said, useless.

The Lebanese gov't doesn't have the wherewithal to subdue Hizbollah, and Syria doesn't give one flying **** about the well-being of Lebanon, you know that just as well as I do. I'll agree with you that's intolerable that Hizbollah has got 13,000 stocked up there, that's obvious. But it's also getting obvious that your gov't doesn't have a clear strategy aside of "making a point". So far they haven't been willing to dig up the moles themselves nor to engage the paymasters in Syria, so it just hopes a lot of chest-thumping will impress an incapacitated Lebanese gov't to risk reigniting a civil war to engage Hizbullah. That's a lot of hopeful thinking there.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Eli
The attacks on the Beirut Airport and a few seaports are of dubious value though

*gasp* You better watch out or NYE is going to try to convince you they were necessary

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Colon™
But it's also getting obvious that your gov't doesn't have a clear strategy aside of "making a point". So far they haven't been willing to dig up the moles themselves nor to engage the paymasters in Syria, so it just hopes a lot of chest-thumping will impress an incapacitated Lebanese gov't to risk reigniting a civil war to engage Hizbullah. That's a lot of hopeful thinking there.

Sounds like Bush's foriegn policy 'experts' have taken over in Isreal .