Israeli Cabinet to mull expanding ground operations

[Purveyor]

The prime minister will meet with the security cabinet Thursday morning to discuss the possibility of expanding the IDF operation in southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened a late-night meeting Wednesday with the group of seven ministers who are part of the security cabinet to discuss options and exchange views about the continuation of the operation in view of the rising casualties in battles against Hezbollah and the continued Katyusha rocket attacks against northern Israel.

It appears that the army is gradually moving away from its previous tactic of raids targeting specific positions along the border, in favor of one of capturing and temporarily holding a security zone whose aim would be to push the rocket launchers further north.

This strategy will not completely prevent the rocket attacks, but it will limit the scope of the threat against northern Israel.


---end of article excerpt---

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743027.html

[burythehatchet]

1. color me shocked

[Freedom_from_Chains]

2. You and me both. This keeps expanding until we get Syria

and Iran drawn in. Or that was how I always understood the plan.

[Taxloss]

3. Um ...

Syria and Iran are already in. Who do you think is supplying Hezbollah?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

4. Well of course they are but that is just a little too abstract to

sell to the American voters. We have to have something a little more concrete.

[CuteNFuzzy]

5. you're right

what do you think Cheney might have brewing up for Americans this time?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

6. Well your guess is as good as mine, however if you want my

opinion, and you know what they say about opinion, we have to get Syria or Iran to take a pot shot at Israel. Or a variation could be that Israel gets info that Iran has a nuclear missile ready to launch, see we told you they were close, and so Israel does a pre-emptive strike against Iran, which of course Iran will respond, an hey, the party's on.

[Purveyor]

7. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld have been eerily quiet as of late...

Scares the crap outta me!!!

[The Magistrate]

8. That Is The Best Of The Courses Available To Them, Sir

If combined with a cessation, or at least a great dimunition, of the aerila campaign in central Lebanon, it will greatly reduce the political pressure being brought against them, and give them a chance to actually achieve in some degree an objective worth having.