Comments | tongodeon: My understanding of the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict

tongodeon

My understanding of the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict

Aug 07, 2006 23:43

I intended to post this a week or two ago, but the Syria/Lebanon/Israel/iran issue is rather complicated. It's taken me a lot of reading to untangle the threads and make sense of what's going on over there. Incidentally that's my major problem with almost every opinion piece I've seen written about the issue: there are many uncomfortable truths ( Read more... )

2006 israel-lebanon conflict, politics

Comments 47

merde August 8 2006, 16:18:17 UTC

thanks for posting this stuff. it's really helpful to those of us who are too busy and/or lazy to try to untangle what's actually going on, and your take on things is generally pretty straightforward and reasonable ( ... )

erikred August 8 2006, 17:08:46 UTC

My Take: Israel's goals seem pretty clear: they've known about the rather nasty sleeping giant next door. When he became an awake giant they decided they needed to do something about it. As a friend pointed out "this is what would happen if the KKK in Florida started shooting rockets at Cuba."

This is where it gets tricky. If you (or a Cuban exile group, for that matter) started launching missiles from the Florida Keys into Cuba, the US government would shut you down very quickly. You might get away with a single volley, two if you were lucky or clever, but by then, things would have been done to ensure that your shenanigans were over; patrols would have been organized, the ATF would be knocking down your door, etc.

For all that the Lebanese military employs some 60k ground troops, it's not clear that they have any sway with the heavily armed and very well fortified Hezbollah militia. Compounding this is the fact that the same Lebanese military had a very uneasy relationship with the Syrian troops that as recently as last Fall ( ... )

tongodeon August 8 2006, 19:22:40 UTC

For all that the Lebanese military employs some 60k ground troops, it's not clear that they have any sway with the heavily armed and very well fortified Hezbollah militia.

I *think* I mentioned above that Lebanon would really like to do something about it but they can't do a lot because Hezbollah is so powerful militarily. I feel pretty bad for the legitimate Lebanese government, caught between Israel and Hezbollah without a lot they can do on either side.

Maybe a better analogy would be if the Cardenas drug cartel started sending mortar rounds into San Diego and kidnapping American police officers. Actually, I think that Hezbollah are even a few orders of magnitude more powerful than that.

erikred August 8 2006, 20:34:09 UTC

The reversal of positions (i.e., into the US rather than out of the US) makes the analogy work. The solution that leaps most readily to mind right now is a multi-national force with Rules of Engagement detailed to include strong action against anyone bearing arms in southern Lebanon.

Also, have another Rumsfeld image.

Why Limit War Units To Mere Nation States? drieuxster August 8 2006, 19:58:03 UTC

Re: Why Limit War Units To Mere Nation States? spiritualmonkey August 8 2006, 22:52:24 UTC

Your fundamental premise in all of this is that States are the only legitimate repository of 'war like stuff', and that any military organization that is NOT a part of the "authorized nation state" is in some majikal "bad space" and should not be allowed to engage in military style operations.

Someone once defined the Government as "Whatever actor has a monopoly on the authorized use of violence."

As a practical matter, I can see why nation-states want to limit war-making to national armies: As precarious as the rules of war are sometimes, nations tend to do a better job of following them and when they're not followed, it can get hella ugly (which is why they were drawn up int he first place).

OTOH, does not the local populace have the right to rise up and slit the sleeping throats of the foreign soldiers occupying their homeland? Red Dawn was a big hit in it's day ( ... )

Re: Why Limit War Units To Mere Nation States? drieuxster August 9 2006, 00:04:17 UTC

You are starting to move into the right direction ( ... )

Re: Why Limit War Units To Mere Nation States? tongodeon August 9 2006, 02:53:09 UTC

OTOH, does not the local populace have the right to rise up and slit the sleeping throats of the foreign soldiers occupying their homeland?I've never been exactly sure what the difference is between the "right" and "ability", especially when discussing large groups and foreign powers. Obviously Hezbollah militias have the right to shoot rockets into Israeli cities. Shia militias have the right to pull Sunnis out of houses, and Sunni militias have the right to retaliate against Shia police by blowing up car bombs in front of police stations. The LRA and Janjaweed in Sudan have the right to remove any people who occupy "their land", even if those people think it's their own land ( ... )

eejitalmuppet August 8 2006, 20:25:33 UTC

I don't think the bank analogy really stands up to scrutiny. Most banks don't supply the robbers with weapons.

I also think this misses the Iranian and US connections.

I'm too lazy to google for specific references, but there is a strong link between Hezbollah and Iran. Many analysts have observed that a potential stumbling block in any US plans to behave aggressively towards Iran (not necessarily an invasion; for example, this could mean applying more diplomatic pressure, with a credible threat of invasion to back the words) is that Iran can sic Hezbollah onto Israel. To paraphrase, if this happens when the US is playing hardball with Iran, it's going to make life difficult for the US:

To keep voters at home happy, the US will have to support any Israeli retaliation, whether or not that response is proportionate. If Hezbollah cause huge problems, or if the situation escalates to include Syria, the US might have to provide military support to Israel (unlikely, as the Israelis can take care of themselves pretty well).
Overt US ( ... )

tongodeon August 8 2006, 20:55:03 UTC

Most banks don't supply the robbers with weapons.

As you point out, the Lebanese government doesn't supply Hezbollah with weapons, but Iran and other countries are a major source of those weapons. Maybe we could say that a rival bank from another town has sent a well armed bank robber into Lebanon Savings and Loan and that 11% of the bank tellers were thinking of moving or switching jobs anyway.

spiritualmonkey August 8 2006, 23:30:25 UTC

Thus, it's in the interests of both the US and Israel to neutralise Hezbollah before anything happens about Iran. Sure, there will be outrage and hostility across the Middle East, but that can be allowed to subside to its normal level before the next move, and no more US units will be exposed as a result.

All this presupposes that Israel's and the US interests are one and the same. But a lot of people think that what's good for Israel isn't necessarily good for the US, we just act that way.

Allowing the outrage and hostility to "subside to its normal level before the next move" basically declares that the outrage and hostility is like the weather, something that comes and goes with greater or less intensity, but is always there, contextless and without any real agenda or validity.

A lot of people believe that much of that outrage and hostility comes from the fact that the Israelis have had a boot on the neck of the Palestinians and have been denying their right to a country of their own for generations.

Because of APIAC, The US ( ... )

tongodeon August 9 2006, 03:05:54 UTC

There's a very, very strong argument to be made that, regardless of who's morally right in this conflict, Israel's actions and our support are not achieving results that we favor. I'm 100% OK with this sort of criticism.

Thread 9

veep August 8 2006, 23:28:23 UTC

If Israel's army tried the same tactic (hiding among Israeli civilians) it wouldn't work because Hezbollah is already intentionally trying to kill Israeli civilians.

Human Rights Watch condemns both sides for attacking civilians without military purpose, not just Hezbollah. You can read their 50 page report (or the summary) to see that they investigated Israeli attacks and found no Hezbollah military activity nearby/related/etc. They conclude that some Israeli actions have reached the level of "war crimes".

Israel is also intentionally trying to kill civilians, just like Hezbollah. I'm not sure what it would take to get you to believe this.

tongodeon August 9 2006, 03:04:34 UTC

Human Rights Watch condemns both sides for attacking civilians without military purpose, not just Hezbollah.

To be clear: so do I. Israel's attacks have been less discriminate, disproportionate, and smack of collective punishment of the Lebanese majority who already oppose Hezbollah. I'm just trying to provide some perspective.

Israel is also intentionally trying to kill civiliansHezbollah *are* civilians. I have no trouble believing that Israel is intentionally targeting the criminal civilian militia which attacks them ( ... )

agentelrond August 9 2006, 05:38:31 UTC

Precisely. And if Hezbollah had the kind of rocket power that allowed them to aim more precisely (though as both the US and Israel have proven, no rocket is perfect), I'm sure the numbers of dead would be far more equal, even with Israel's bomb shelters and civilian exodus from the Lebanese border.

On a related note, I once called into an NPR talk with a member of the military, and brought up how I'd noticed that whenever a U.S. bomb or rocket or gunfire goes astray, many (especially those on the receiving end) believe it was intentional. The officer agreed and said it's called the "Man on the Moon" problem. People point to the fact that if we can put a man on the moon, how on earth could we not have the technical know-how to never make mistakes in the heat of battle. I think to some degree Israel suffers from this belief too, though as you say repeatedly, they could be more discriminate (though how much more is hard to say) in their targetings.