"Israeli troops are now inside Lebanon.......some are saying the soldiers are as much as 10 km. inside the country. "
That was inevitable from the pattern of bombing. Bush is a moron or is colluding with the Israelis. Disarming Hezbollah isn't the goal, or at least not directly. That would mean house to house in all of the cities and towns in the southern part of Lebanon. Israel doesn't have that sort of manpower, even if they conscripted everyone from 8 to 80. The goal is to force Syria and/or Iran to fish or cut bait. Either they come to the rescue of their clients, or they let them swing in the wind. They've been providing Hezbollah with pellet guns so they could plink at the Israelis. Israel got tired of that and has raised the ante. Who will blink first?
Makes sense. And yes, Bush is colluding with them. Rice was supposed to leave yesterday for the ME to start talking with the parties in question. To my knowledge she hasn't left DC.
And yeah, this sucks for Lebanon as a country. But Israel isn't in a position to nurture Lebanon. They have a very real problem, there are 14 million Israelis. They are a couple of orders of magnitude more Arabs. The Israelis have to win, every time. Losing once means they have lost everything. So a democratic Lebanon is a luxury.
First there are only six million Israels some of whom are Arab, not Jews.
Secondly, I hear what you're saying but I don't buy that message any more. At one time it was very true but Israel so outflanks the rest of the Arab world in terms of military might, the Arabs are under no illusions as to Israel's military prowess and its superiority to the Arabs' military power.
Thirdly, Israel will gain acceptance one nation at a time. Egypt was the first......then came Jordan. The next one was to be Lebanon. But Israel couldn't wait.....now I think they've blown it for quite some time.
The failure here is that Lebanon was never given the tools they needed to secure the country. They were left with a powerful, extra-governmental force, i.e. Hezbollah. They didn't have to power to conquer them, their only option was to try to assimilate them. But assimilation takes time. They ran out of it.
True but where was the US? Why weren't we in Lebanon giving them the kind of aid we give Israel? A blown opportunity....don't you think? |
