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Edited on Mon Jul-24-06 05:05 PM by bigtree
July 24, 2006
The stated strategy of Israel is to provide a deterrence or a disincentive for combatants to attack their homeland. That is to be effected with the demonstration of military force; shock and awe. The killings of hundreds of Lebanese and the destruction of their infrastructure is apparently supposed to provide the incentive for the Lebanese to abandon Hizbollah as their provider or protector.
The problem with that approach is that the Hizbollah are not available to the masses of Lebanese civilians to offer up to the Israelis. Those who have been killed or maimed as they were caught in front of the Israeli's military reprisals apparently did not have the power to influence Hizbollah as the Israeli's assumed their deaths would.
The other stated goal of Israel's military campaign is to halt the attacks. So far, the scores of innocent civilians killed in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes have not effected any lessening of the attacks from the Hizbollah combatants.
That's the case as well in Iraq and Afghanistan. The wanton attacks which envelop masses of innocent civilians in their wake have not made these countries more secure. Rather, these collective reprisals - undertaken as a 'defense' against acts which are clearly indefensible, morally and otherwise - have alienated the very groups and individuals who may have been amenable to joining in a unified effort to disband, disarm, and neutralize these militarized splinter organizations.
That's the legacy of the Bush doctrine, which is really no plan at all; save the determination to overrun everything and everyone who stands in the way of their manufactured mandates to expand and conquer across sovereign borders.
I think the notion that killing civilians who have absolutely no influence with the political or militant organization of Hizbollah or any other group which supposedly threatens, and destroying their lives and livelihoods as a 'motivation' is reprehensible. That is Israel's stated intention behind the airstrikes. They want to influence the Lebanese away from any support they may have with Hizbollah, politically or otherwise.
The result of the Israeli actions have led many in Lebanon to question their move for independence from Syria and actually drawn them closer to the militant splinter group. The anecdotal evidence (I've posted it here) has the majority in Lebanon blaming Israel for the destruction rather than Hizbollah. I rather doubt the assertion that the strikes will make them want to disarm them at this point where it seems no one seems willing to protect them from the misguided reprisals.
It's a political and diplomatic effort that will dislodge Hizbollah from its influence in southern Lebanon and in the region. I believe the actions of the Israelis are antithetical to that end.
That's the issue now: Have Israel's actions, intended as declared to neutralize and isolate Hizbollah and halt the attacks achieved that result? I would argue that they have, so far, had the opposite effect. As Kofi Annan said today, " "You cannot disarm Hezbollah by force."
I don't think they can disengage and neuter Hizbollah without finding a way to bolster and support the Lebanese government. Otherwise, it leaves Israel advancing to Syria, something none of the Arab states will tolerate. The more Israel advances on Lebanese territory, the less able they will be to convince the Lebanese that they don't need the political and militant organization as a buffer against the destructive Israeli army and air force.
Tony Snow said today that Hizbollah was the aggressor in this conflict. I agree.
But, Israel, in destroying so many Lebanese lives who apparently have nothing to do with the rockets lobbed by Hizbollah, is also an 'aggressor.' If not, then they (and their supporters) need to show how their 'collective' killings have lessened the threat to Israel, or accomplished ANY of the goals they claim to be prosecuting in their reprisals. There has to be an accounting as to what the specific missions of their sorties were in which hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed, and there needs to be an accounting of what the intended result was, measured against the actual result. That shouldn't wait until the mass graves are grown over.
Also, there needs to be an accounting of how Israel treats those who are seeking refuge from their assaults. There is no convention in war that would allow them to indiscriminately bomb areas where civilians are known to reside as they have, repeatedly.
Further, there needs to be some acknowledgement that most of the refugees and the existing supplies are being directed to Syria. If the US and Israel want to continue their animosity with the Syrians then they have to take responsibility for the refugees who are caught in the middle of their political manuevers. Little chance of any inituative like that succeeding if it's managed by the Bush regime who has yet to return the electricity (or security) to the residents of Iraq.
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