Reply #13: I'm not talking about an Israeli occupation - in fact the very opposite [View All]

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

I'm talking about a proxy war, the same way people are saying Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran and Syria. I'm not talking about arming and equipping factions within Lebanon but instead the regular army, under the direction of the democratically elected President.

I'm suggesting that Israel and the United States have fully trained and equipped a modern Lebanese Army to the hilt and to have let them take care of Hezbollah. Apparently, things are not the same in Lebanon now as they were before during the previous war, with their democratically elected government. Turning Lebanon into a powerful, militarily sophisticated Arab state might have helped their democracy to survive.

I'm suggesting that Israel and the United States should perhaps have kept its response to the captured soldiers very, very restrained and instead have worked over a slow but steady period of time to nurture the civil society, government, and military of Lebanon. This would have been the better option. What this latest reaction by Israel suggests to me is that they don't want a strong democracy with a powerful military in Lebanon.