>Clearly the Israeli military doesn't agree with you - their stated and >obvious goal is to deteriorate Hezbollah's military capability and >create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. we're talking percentages here. 'Deteriorate' means removing both their weapons and fighters.
>Right now this is no different than 1982 or 1996 and unless and until >Israel and her allies destroy both Hezbollah and its benefactors, >Syria and Iran, the re-arming will continue. Unless Israel gets NATO or another real group in there to monitor the situation. The UN, especially under that fool Kofi has proven not only ineffective, but even dangerous. >Further, strategically, this is stupid move for Israel because they >are fighting on Hezbollah's terms; in a manner and at a time and place >of its choosing. Hezbollah architect ed this war and as such they've >predicted and manipulated Israel's reaction - which is equivalent to >control. Actually, they are not. The air attacks are designed to keep the situation on Israel's terms. Israel doesn't have to go in by ground and the only reason they do is to reduce the number of civilian casualties. It would be safer by far for them to simply level the 'Hizballah capital' rather than take it over. >This situation is no different than Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein was/is >both a political and terrorist organization. The solution was >diplomatic, not martial: recognize and provide a politically >accessible path for Sinn Fein. Actually, it's totally different. Israel left Lebanon. It removed it self to the international border and had no foothold in Lebanon at all. The ONLY reason Israel is back there now is because a terrorist group that is part of the government attacked them over the border for years and took Israeli soldiers hostage. The same situation in Northern Ireland would be if Britian totally left Ireland and then Ireland kept lobbing missiles into England. It might sound the same on paper, but when you look at the facts, there's very little that is the same. >Hezbollah will need to be engaged, provided a political path that >contains mutually accepted goals and measures, enforced by a >multinational military. If Iran or Syria tries to shake things up, >then the multinational military should take them out. How can Hizballah be engaged? Their entire point of existance is to drive Israel out of Lebanon. Israel left and they needed another reason to exist so they made a claim that the Shebba farm, internationally recognized as being part of Syria was theirs. Even when Israel made gestures of giving it over to UN control and removing even that pre-text of a reason for attacks, Hizballah made claims that parts of northern Israel was really part of Lebanon and the attacks had to continue. There is no political engagement here because one side only exists to attack the other. One side is only paid to attack the other. Abd as for a multi-national force taking anyone out, will not happen. If it's UN backed then it'll be bogged down in the standard "Israel is always wrong" that goes on every day in the UN (this is not paranoia, simply fact when you look at votes and events). Best idea here is for the government of Lebanon, the ones who are not Syrian puppets, to come in and force Hizballah to comply. That'll force Hizballah to either change and be part of Lebanon or be a foreign force in Lebanon. But again, will never happen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:212046 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
