The Middle East Continues...

[Datajack Franit]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/new-york-times-busted-in-hezbollah.html

[Lonestar]

*wanders in two days later*

Originally posted by GePap
As I told Dino, NO.

Hizbullah has a very primative strike ability at israel, ie. relativelty inaccurate rockets. They would rationally seek to maximize their lethality in order to make them more effective weapons. Since you can never guess if they will hit any structure, make them as lethal as possible to personnel (be it civilian or military). You do that because the point of those rockets is to try to "deter" Israel, justas the point of Israel mass bombing campaign is to "deter" Hizbullah. Both have failed strategically.

Not really; I think Hezbollah's strategic goals are to maximise civilian casualties, both Israeli and Lebanese.

NO. HIzbullah's murders can be thought of as "reckless murder". Hizbullah shoots rockets into Israel knowing full well they are likely to kill civilians, but no always (most don;t) and they will kill soldiers just as well (like the 12 killed in the single deadliest attack). Get your terminology correct at least.

Fair enough.

Nice how you ignore the actual development of this crisis. For most of the first 2 weeks there were almost no "hard targets" to hit in Lebanon because the Israelis were staying out of Lebanon and only putting troops in intermitently. As stated before, Hizbullah stopped shooting rockets into Israel when Israel stopped bombing Lebanon. If you look at the Israeli dead, most have been soldiers, killed in purely military attacks (those hard target attacks you speak of). At the same time Hizbullah has immense political and morale reasons to make the fight seem as "even" as possible, meaning that if Israel is bombing Lebanese towns and villages, then it pays politically for Hizbullah to show they have "similar" capabilities.

It's a good thing I was talking about Hezbollah's proven ability to launch cross-border raids on IDF sites rather than troops in Lebanon, which, as you pointed out, were only in Lebanon intermittantly.

The simple question is this, had Israel not gone for a wideranging strategic air campaign against all of Lebanon, including Southern Beirut, would Hizbullah have carried out a rocket campaign of the type and scale they have carried out? I say no, and I think i can make a better arguement of it than you can.

Hmmm...I disagree. If Israel had kept airstikes limited to Southern Lebanon (Ignoring the rest of the country, which had failed in it's responsibilities as a nation-state.) Hexbollah would have still gone after as many soft targets as possible, especially as it became apperently that the IDF was either hunkering down or prepareing to invade.

The Shiites of Lebanon hate the PLO, which is why they gave the IDF flowers when the IDF invaded to drive out the PLO. That Israel's occupation turned out to be more brutal than the PLO's, plus the impetus of the Iranian revolution is what brought about Hizbullah.

Yes, the Shiites hate the PLO...I'm sorry, PA, so much they time their kidnappings to coincide with the one the PA did. There is a Hell of a lot of cooperation going on between the two, at least under the "aid and comfort" clause.

EDIT: I would add that Hezbollah's purpose (resisting the IDF component in Lebanon) had been resolved. Hezbollah started this round of fightng, not Israel. Lebanon added to the problem by not doing anything to rein in an armed militia that has a habit of attacking a militarily superior neighbor that's also unpredictable.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Sandman

So why did they blow up Beirut's lighthouse?

I'll take 'How do you hamper small boats trying to smuggle things like weapons through a blockade at night?' for $100, Alex.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by notyoueither


I'll take 'How do you hamper small boats trying to smuggle things like weapons through a blockade at night?' for $100, Alex.

What wrong with GPS?

[Kuciwalker]

If GPS were easy to use/get there why would they have a lighthouse?

[dannubis]

ask that to just about any major port designer...

[Kuciwalker]

Well either the lighthouse is helpful so destroying it hurts the smugglers or it's not helpful and it was pointless anyway...

[Chemical Ollie]

Just like the Statue of Liberty is obsolete and useless

[Kuciwalker]

What?

[BlackCat]

He is swedish.

[Chemical Ollie]

Just as lighthouses are of more cultural than practical value in the age of GPS, the same applies to the Statue of Liberty. It used to be a major landmark for ships entering New York, but now they can use GPS.

[BlackCat]

BS, but ok, then what is the GPS version of liberty ?

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Just as lighthouses are of more cultural than practical value in the age of GPS, the same applies to the Statue of Liberty. It used to be a major landmark for ships entering New York, but now they can use GPS.

Immigrants, not ships. Important difference, especially to those immigrants at the time.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by BlackCat
BS, but ok, then what is the GPS version of liberty ?

If I weren't to lazy to go out to my boat and check it in the darkness, I would give you the GPS coordinates.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Vince278


Immigrants, not ships. Important difference, especially to those immigrants at the time.

Your reply don't explain why the lighthouses in Lebanon has to be destroyed in order to stop Hizbollah