Breaking News: Israel Pulls Out of Hezbollah Stronghold

[Breeze54]

Israel Pulls Out of Hezbollah Stronghold

Saturday July 29, 2006 5:16 PM

By KATHY GANNON

Associated Press Writer

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) -

Israeli troops pulled back from a Lebanese border town Saturday after a weeklong battle
with Hezbollah, the bloodiest ground fighting of the 18-day Israeli offensive.

Also Saturday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened in a TV broadcast to
attack more cities in central Israel.

More at Link....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5981909,00.html

[whistle]

1. Get ready to see major bombardment and heavy use of bunker buster bombs

...perhaps tactical nuclear devices.

[Breeze54]

2. Now that's

a positive attitude! :evilfrown:

[uppityperson]

6. you are more cynical than I.

let us hope not

[Solo_in_MD]

9. Alternatively, they have had met their objectives and

withdrawing, as they said they would do. If not, its going to be Hell from the Heavens, just in time for the 6:00 News

[daleo]

23. I don't understand what the objective would be, then

It looks like:
- go in.
- kill some people and blow stuff up.
- get a bunch of your own people killed.
- withdraw, providing a psychological boost to the enemy.

[Solo_in_MD]

26. The IDF has stated that they are going to make limited incursions,

destroy Hezbollah capability to attack Israel, and then withdraw. They have also said that it is not their intention to hold territory for the long term. They are maintaining that they are not their to repeat their prior occupation of southern Lebanon. In this case, they take a hot spot, destroy launchers, weapons, gather up anything that looks like it might have intel value, and then move on. If they meet serious resistance they use armor, air strikes etc to break it down and then complete their mission. That is the IDF story and they are sticking to it. Its impossible to tell if that is what is what is really happening there or elsewhere.

On the Arab street, possession = victory, and that the IDF pulled out is to them a victory even if there is not a single Hezbollah left alive. A pyrrhic victory at best.

My take is that its the village is longer an operational Hezbollah facility (can't launch rockets at Israel) but they did not destroying everything or kill all the Hezbollah present.

[daleo]

27. These rockets are quite portable

I think they will be back.

I suppose if Israel got an Afghanistan type NATO force into southern Lebanon they could consider that a victory. It wouldn't be long until Hezbollah, or some equivalent group, started to attack that force, though.

Israel might be some sort of political boost if that were the case - I mean that the countries involved would take the Israeli side by virtue of being attacked by Hezbollah. That might be the response of the political leadership, anyway. The populations involved might just want to wash their hands of the whole thing and withdraw their troops. That seems to be the way Afghanistan is heading.

[Solo_in_MD]

30. We shall see

Some of the shorter range rockets are quite portable and more important concealable. The larger longer range ones require specific transport and launch vehicles.

There has been some claims of collaboration with Hezbollah by the UN observers, though I don't give them much credence.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[respublicus]

32. It's about destroy and dominate neighbors. Read what Olmert is like:

it's part of the imperial hegemony scheme to dominate the middle east which has most of the oil and also the one self-contained non-western civilization
from there they can put the screws to china and achieve the dream of world domination

Olmert is an out and out criminal. See

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3?threadid=172218

[0007]

33. Or.........

[Robbien]

3. Israeli troops claim success in battle for Hezbollah stronghold

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) _ Israeli troops pulled back from a key Lebanese border town Saturday where it battled Hezbollah for a week, claiming to have finished its mission after the bloodiest ground fight of the 18-day war.

http://www.kotv.com/news/?108476

different take on the same event, this one with the US/Israel spin on it.

[Zhade]

7. The IDF was driven out before. No reason it won't happen now.

No reason not to question if that's what happened in this case, even.

[Solo_in_MD]

13. Sort of...

They got picked at continuously until the political will to continue went away. That is not the same as a military defeat.

Israel seems to be trying the USAF approach to war...massive bombardment followed with minimal ground casualties. I've never really bought into that, but we shall see. You control territory and people with people on the ground, not TACAIR assets.

Not clear what has happened in this case. IDF said multiple small incursions with no holding of territory followed by leaving once objectives were achieved was their policy. That seems to fit the pattern here. Nasarallah is claiming they were rebuffed. But he is not there and comms are in tatters. He is also given to hyperbole, as is the style for Arab and Iranian leaders. We also know that if the going had gotten too bloody, IAF TACAIR would have been brought in either to support the troops of level the village. Saw a report that the latter tactic might be used in Tyre is a real concern of some of the UN observers.

There is lots of reasons to question both sides, so the correct assessment is somewhere in the middle. IDF did not dig out every Hezbollah fighter, but its a safe bet its no an operational center for Hezbollah at this point easy. Both sides are going to claim victory, and the dead will still be dead

[daleo]

25. Wars are political by nature

If you don't succeed in your political aims, then the military part is just futile killing.

For example, Britain won most of the battles against the colonials, but the U.S. won the war of independence. The U.S. won most of the battles in Viet Nam, but they withdrew eventually. That's how it goes.

If destabilizing Lebanon was a tactical objective, Israel won this war. But they also solidified support for Hezbollah, which they surely did not want to do.

I suppose the real battle might have been within internal Israeli politics, anyway. Olmert got a chance to show he was willing to go to war, and establish is military persona.

[xchrom]

4. we'll see what comes next.

i would love to have been a fly on the wall when whoever it was called condi or bush to describe what was going to happen.

[Miss Chybil]

5. So many dead civilians compared to soldiers.

Why are we all at the mercy of such a few?

[earthside]

8. Israel Maybe Losing ...

... its first war.

Pulling our because of success?

My suspicion is that the IDF took heavy losses and saw its position inside Lebanon as unsustainable.

Israel is also taking a beating politically.

If Isael is smart, they will end this and negotiate with Hezbollah and offer reparations to Lebanon.

If Israel is stupid, it will lash out and expand the war.

War is not the answer.

The best way to keep the peace, is not to start wars.

[Fredda Weinberg]

10. I got from the article that military objective had been met

Hezbollah would have to move to more vulnerable locations. It was the largest town near the border and a well-known source for supplies.

[w4rma]

29. Who knows if it has or hasn't?

They'll say their "objective" was completed no matter what they do. They believe it would hurt them further, politically, to say it wasn't completed even if they were telling the truth.

[Tesha]

31. The military objectives are always "met"...

The military objectives are always "met"; they just often
turn out to be a lot different than the originally-stated
goals (wink-wink).

After all, didn't we achieve our military goals in Iraq?

Tesha

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. The IDF got its ass kicked in Bin Jbail this week

And everybody knows it. Accomplished its mission? LOL. The selective amnesia is even worse than usual. They said they'd taken the town on Monday, then had an infantry brigade retreat under fire on Tuesday, then you didn't hear word one out of there until they say "We're pulling out because we've completed our mission!" Meanwhile, this time last week they were going to completely disarm Hezbollah and occupy Lebanon to the Litani River. They can't even occupy a town two miles from their own border without getting shot to pieces. They better bring in the cluster bombs if they're serious about it, because neither Israeli infantry nor armor units are going to move Hezbollah from their rat's nest in Southern Lebanon.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bemildred]

14. I particularly notice the wildly varying body counts.

Makes me think of Vietnam.

[Solo_in_MD]

16. The fog of war is real

I tend to trust the IDF tallies of their own KIA/WIA but little else.

[bemildred]

19. Yes, and so is the fog of military butt-covering.

I agree that the "truth" is likely unclear at this point. I doubt even Nasrallah would say the IDF got its butt kicked, it would be something more along the lines of we resisted them successfully, they got nothing, etc.

But a military brass-hat that has expatiated at length on how he was going to wipe the floor with (type designated enemy du jour here) cannot allow such uncertainty, or such a dispassionate view, it might lead to further questioning.

[Solo_in_MD]

22. Given Nasrallah's previous hyperbole,

I would expect him to say just about anything and have it believed by the Arab street. Go back to the Gulf War and even recent statements by Iran and others. What we would find asinine from a western leader is common fare from Arab nations and the regional press. Note that I also don't expect the IDF to tell the truth in real time either.

The IDF has the resources to level any part and perhaps all of southern Lebanon. If they left its because they choose to. Perhaps it was due to too many ground casualties or because they achieved their objectives. Given the capabilities of the IAF, I would bet on latter rather than the former, but I seriously doubt it was a cakewalk and they achieved all of their objectives either.

Its not a binary situation...

[bemildred]

24. It's my impression that he's been pretty careful about what he says.

Certainly looks like less of a blowhard than Halutz at this point. I've taken the trouble to read everything he says of late, in translation of course, and he's been quite restrained compared to the moron in Iran for instance, or Danny Boy.

The IDF could indeed flatten S. Lebanon, but it would be expensive, it would look really tacky, the bombs would then be gone, used up; and when they were done Hezbullah would drag some rockets up to ground level and shoot them off. And if the IDF invades, the Guerillas will be there waiting in the rubble.

I agree that skepticism about Hizbullah's casualty reports is wise.

[Solo_in_MD]

34. Here are some quotes

but consider the source...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3283155,00.html

[bemildred]

35. Thanks, I read the speech, several times. nt

[Breeze54]

17. I read an article today that

said the same thing. They were comparing the fighting by hezbollah to the Vietcong.
That it's guerilla warfare and hezbollah pops out of the grass and shoots, etc.

[bemildred]

20. It seems to me that in each new war,

the guerillas learn from the last one and improve their weapons and tactics,
while the conventional military powers learn nothing and go with more gadgets and bigger bombs,
and they lose again.

[Breeze54]

21. I think you're right.

The "good ole' boys of war" don't learn new tricks very well and never learn from their mistakes.
:grr:

[Solo_in_MD]

15. Such certainty in light of the conflicting reports and the lack

of first person reports is at best premature.

Clue: The realitiy is not what either side says it is.

[Teaser]

28. It is not a matter of debate

Israel stated military objectives.

They have failed to accomplish those stated objectives.


They have since backed off from those objectives.

Translation: Israel lost.

[lovuian]

18. Any reports out of this war has to be suspect on both sides

I remember a President on a aircraft carrier raising his hand up yelling we won we won and now we are in a brutal civil war in Iraq...

You will have to read between the lines in this war story...

[HuffleClaw]

37. the proper word here is RETREAT

or 'advancing in a rearward direction' !

[Hardrada]

38. Mao said something about a retreating opponent

but I can't recall if one is to attack the enemy and press him or just give him room enough to get away.